Translated by
JOHN GUMMING
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Quotations from the Bible are taken for the most part from the Revised Standard
Version (C 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the United States of America, used with permission. Where it is
necessary to approximate to the Greek, Latin and German versions used by the
author, RSV has been adapted minimally and the Authorized Version, the Douay/
Rheims translation, as well as J.B. Philips, The ,\ew Testament in Modern English © J.B.
Philips 1960, and The Revised English Bible, (('*, Oxford University Press and Cambridge
University Press 1989, have been drawn on for certain words and phrases.
Introduction 1
4. Reconciliation 122
'Yes, but what does it do for me?' Variations on this question are
asked or have to be answered by so many Christians today,
particularly in respect of the sacraments.
This book is not a theological treatise on the sacraments. It is
addressed to all those who actually receive and administer the
sacraments in today's world, whether the ordinary Christians for
whom they are intended, or parents, young people, priests, ministers,
parish workers, teachers, carers, counsellors and others with a more
specific interest in some of them or certain aspects of all seven
sacraments.
In other words, I have written these pages for all those concerned
with the major themes and events of birth, death, health and
sickness, growing up, responsibility and guilt, and mission, and how
the Church acts with regard to them.
I have included a certain amount of history, when it seemed
relevant, but I have concentrated more on the living meaning of the
sacraments as expressed in their often ancient symbolism, imagery
and language. I wanted to bring out the positive, life-giving and life-
enhancing function of the sacraments. Therefore, whenever possible,
I have made practical suggestions drawn from my own experience of
people's difficulties with the sacraments in the present-day world,
from successful celebrations, and from many years of conversations,
talks, preparatory courses and constant thought about and medita-
tion on the sacraments as expressions of God's love for us.
I ask how baptism can shape our everyday existence, how the
mystery of the eucharist can transform both individual and
community, how confirmation can be experienced as initiation into
the art of living effectively, how reconciliation can help to make
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2
1
INTRODUCTION
A new identity
The rite of baptism in the early Church left a deep impression on the
candidates and on the congregation. It took several years to prepare
for reception of the sacrament, which introduced the newly baptized
to the mystery of Christian life. The early Church was clearly able to
fill people with enthusiasm for living with and by the power of Jesus
Christ. This new life offered them an alternative to the empty,
godless striving that was characteristic of late antiquity. Baptism
allowed Christians to break with their life-histories up to that point.
The life they chose instead would be guided by what Jesus had said
and draw its strength from a new, divine source. The newly baptized
felt that their lives were starting all over again. They were sure that
only now, through baptism, were they alive in any real sense.
Everything to date was, as the First Letter of Peter puts it, mataios (a
Greek word signifiying futile and meaningless), quite illusory, only
half a life. In baptism they surrendered their old identity and
discovered a new one in Jesus Christ.
Life in the ancient world at the end of its tether stressed the
importance of panem et circenses, bread and circuses or, as we might
say, just having a good time. It was a decadent world that seemed to
have forgotten the real meaning of life. Everything centred on
novelty and thrills, on pleasure and entertainment.
Candidates for baptism broke free of this activity to seek a new
identity in Christ. Their night-time baptism was an unforgettable
ceremony that symbolized casting off the old personality. They entered
the font naked and water was poured over them three times. They
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renounced evil and the futility of a life lived far from the presence of
God and chose to die to this world. They promised that they would
seek their identity in Christ, abandoning all attempts to define
themselves in terms of success and achievement, pleasure and excess.
A new birth
They experienced their baptism as a new birth, for they had received
the gift of a new existence in Christ. This new life was marked by the
feeling that they were undergoing an immense liberation. These
baptized Christians thought of themselves as defined by God, for now
they were free people. They were no longer subject to any emperor
and no longer compelled to do what other people wanted. They were
truly free men and women and could take the road that led to real
life. Baptism enabled them to experience a new closeness to God and
an assurance of his unconditional love. Baptism for them meant
initiation into the mystery of redeemed and liberated life, and into the
mystery of a God who received them into a vital system fed by his
divine love. When the candidates emerged naked from the font to be
anointed with fragrant oil (men by the bishop, women by another
woman), they knew they were truly new people, for now they were
wholly enclosed in God's love. At the same time they experienced the
fellowship of new brothers and sisters in the Church. This was a
community where they were accepted without prejudice, but also one
that required them to lead a meaningful and fulfilled life.
Sharing in God
There can be no doubt that many people nowadays, too, long for
fulfilment in life and to be freed from the claims and demands of this
world. But many also wonder what this longing has to do with Jesus
Christ, and why fellowship with Christ rather than anything else
should make them free and enable them to lead a full life. Surely,
they say, it's sufficient to commit yourself spiritually in one way or
another, and you can do that quite satisfactorily without including
Jesus in the formula.
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BAPTISM
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Meaning of baptism
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BAPTISM
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8
BAPTISM
Water
Water of purification
All religions and cultures also portray water as having the power of
cleansing and renewal. The water of baptism cleanses us from the
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Spiritual fruits
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BAPTISM
we can always draw. This spring will always inspire new ideas in us,
for it lies where we are in touch with divine creativity. Whoever
operates by the power of this source will never be exhausted. Our
work will flow from it, and we shall take pleasure in what we do by
its inspiration. We shall also find joy in the vitality that rises from it.
We are all afraid that our strength might fail us, that new ideas will
cease to flow, and that we shall become dull and empty. Baptism
promises us that the source within us is inexhaustible because it is
divine. It will keep us perpetually fresh and vital and enliven the seed
within us that longs to break through and flower and fruit.
The creative aspect of baptismal water comes to the fore in the
story of the baptism of Cornelius, a deeply religious Roman
centurion. Cornelius has a dream in which he is told that he should
send for a man known as Peter. When Peter enters Cornelius's house
he speaks to the large number of people he finds assembled there, and
everyone who listens to him is filled with the Holy Spirit. They begin
to speak in foreign tongues and to glorify God. The Jewish believers
who have come with Peter are absolutely amazed that the gift of the
Holy Spirit is being poured out on Gentiles too. But Peter says:
' "Could anyone refuse water or object to these people being
baptized - people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did
ourselves?" And he gave orders for them to be baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ' (Acts 10.47f.).
Baptism with water is associated with the descent of the Spirit.
The early Church believed that baptismal water was filled with the
sanctifying and life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. That is why the
water of baptism can make us productive, and sanctify and renew us.
Water can also have a destructive power. People in the ancient world
were especially frightened of the dangers of the sea. Nowadays, too,
the lethal force of water is obvious in innumerable disasters caused by
floods. In dreams flooding can mean that we are overcome by the
unconscious; that we are no longer living by our own power but by
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Disarming death
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BAPTISM
in and which flows through us, will keep us united even beyond
death. This belief will cancel our fear that the child could be taken
from us by death. And freedom from this anxiety will guard us from
clinging to the child compulsively and trying to hold onto it.
Open heaven
If we look for a moment at the account of Jesus's own baptism, we
shall discover other aspects of water and of baptism. This is how
Mark describes Jesus's baptism: 'In those days Jesus came from
Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And
when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens
opened and the Spirit descending on him like a dove; and a voice
came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well
pleased'" (Mark 1.9-11).
When Jesus enters the water, this symbolizes his penetration of the
depths of the earth. In depth psychology, or psychoanalysis, water
stands for the unconscious. In baptism we descend into the depths of
the unconscious, into the abyss of our own soul, into the shadowy
realm where everything that we have excluded from life has been
repressed. Precisely because we go down into our own darkness,
heaven opens up above us. This is a beautiful way of expressing the
mystery of being a Christian. We have the courage to accept our own
humanity, with all its ups and downs, and also with the darkness that
has settled in our unconscious. Even if we do not dislodge anything
down there, just being brave enough to descend into our own depths
results in the heavens splitting open overhead.
The open heavens reveal the horizon where we live as Christians.
This is the open horizon of God. Our souls share in the broad
expanse of the sky, in the brilliance of a star-spattered sky, in the
glorious colours of a summer sky, and in the soft light of a sky in
autumn. Wre should not think of ourselves too meanly but set our
sights as high as possible, for the heavens have opened over us, and
our life stretches all the way into God himself.
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Unconditional acceptance
Rebirth
The baptismal water vitalized by the Holy Spirit also symbolizes the
sacred womb from which people are born again. The image of
rebirth stands for one of the main aspects of baptism. In John's
gospel Jesus says to Nicodemus: 'Believe me, a human being cannot
even see the kingdom of God without being born again' (John 3.3).
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BAPTISM
Anointing
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lovingly on the precise spot where we have been hurt. His touch can
heal our wounds, just as he touched and healed the sick in his
lifetime. But anointing with the oil of catechumens is also intended to
show us that today Christ wishes to heal through us. We have to be
like the oil of anointing for the child. We have to enclose him or her
in our love so that injuries can heal in our presence. The child should
see us as radiating healing. But that will be possible only if, like Jesus,
we gently touch people at the points where they are most sensitive to
injury and insult, support them, and encourage them to engage in
the venture of their own lives.
Chrism
Chrism is the oil with which kings are anointed. In ancient Israel
kings and prophets were anointed with oil to symbolixe the fact that
God's blessing was on them and that they had received a new
authority. Chrism is an oil mixed with balsam and spices, and exudes
a particularly fragrant scent. Anointing symbolizes the fact that we
are royal, prophetic and priestly people; that God's blessing has
come upon us; and that a special scent is emitted by our lives: a rich
and life-giving fragrance, and not the stench of death to be expected
from those whose selves are inwardly lacerated and torn.
Baptism makes us royal individuals who are in control of themselves
and ruled by no one else; people who live in their own right instead of
others ordaining how they live; people who are at peace with
themselves and therefore are capable of radiating peace. We are people
with an unassailable dignity and value, with a divine dignity and
beauty. Prophets are those who speak openly and trustworthily; who
have something to say with their entire lives: something that can be
said in this world only through them. Every one of us is a prophet: that
is, he or she is capable of expressing through his or her personal
existence some aspect of God that can be made perceptible and can be
experienced in this world only through this individual life. Every
human being is unique: a unique word of God that can sound forth in
this world only through the medium of this individuality.
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BAPTISM
Access to God
We are all priests, too. That is the message of the First Letter of
Peter, which some scholars interpret as a baptismal sermon. 'But you
are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own
people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called
you out of darkness into his marvellous light' (1 Pet. 2.9).
A priest is a mediator between God and people. A priest has access
to God. What does that mean for us? When we are consecrated as
priests and priestesses through baptism, it means that we have direct
access to God, and that we unite God and humanity in ourselves. I
think of a priest above all as someone who can transform what is
earthly into that which is divine, making earthly things permeable to
God, and discovering the tracks of God in human reality. We are all
called on to transform the matter of our lives so that divine life shines
out from it. Priests have the task of being wholly permeable to God's
light and glory. Accordingly, God's glory is perceptible in every
human being. The First Letter of Peter tells us that a priest's work is
to proclaim the great things that God has done for the individual and
for the community, where and how he has brought light into their
darkness, and filled them with light. A priest, therefore, also
expounds and interprets human life, disclosing the divine traces of
light and significance in every life.
When the priest lights the baptismal candle at the Paschal Candle
and hands it to the candidate for baptism, or to a godparent, the rite
expresses the idea that every human being is a beam of light for this
world. We sometimes experience children only as a burden. Baptism
is intended to open our eyes to the fact that with each child a new
light shines out in this world. This recalls the similar idea in the
ancient world that with the arrival of each person a star is born to
sparkle for humanity in the night sky, so that each person can make
the world a brighter and kinder place. Our most profound vocation
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is to make the eyes of the people round about us light up and to bring
some warmth into their cold hearts.
The early Church called baptism photismos, which is Greek for
illumination. Accordingly, baptism not only shows us that a light is
born for us in each child, but that the child himself or herself is
illuminated by God's everlasting light. The early Church interpreted
the healing of the blind in John 9.1-12 as a baptismal narrative. Our
eyes are opened and light up in baptism. Then we can see reality
pure and simple, as it is. The legend of St Odilia expresses this aspect
of the sacrament, for she was born blind but gained her sight through
baptism. Baptism illuminates our eyes so that we see God's light in
us.
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Transformation
All the symbols and rites we have examined so far say something
about the mystery of the individual. But many people who can
remember details of the old baptismal theology want to know what
happens in baptism now that makes it so very different from the past,
and what that has to do with the Church into which an individual is
still received by baptism. Baptism not only represents what a human
being actually is but effects a transformation. A sacrament (as
Catholic teaching put it for so long) is the means by which something
invisible is made visible and communicated to us. God's grace is given
to the candidate through the external rites. We are not just putting on
a show, but on the other hand we are not practising magic. Instead
we are representing what God actually does to this person.
The Fathers of the Church believed that through the priest's or
individual Christian's hand Jesus himself touched the child and
carried out the action of the sacrament on him or her. What Jesus
did to people two thousand years ago he does to us now. He raises us
up, touches us, heals our wounds, encourages us with his words and
gives us his Spirit, who is poured out over us in his death. He takes us
with him on his way, which leads through the cross to resurrection,
and to true and everlasting life.
In the early Church the rite of baptism was a major experience for
the candidates. They realized that something extraordinary was
taking place, and that a transformation had occurred. Children now
certainly feel what is happening to them only unconsciously. It is
difficult to imagine that the experience of baptism could mean
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Incorporation
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The questions
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words they have been considering, and in which they express their
own faith. One woman who was alienated from the Church broke
into tears when she spoke out in front of her relatives and said why
she wanted her son to be baptized. She remembered how the faith
had been like another home for her, and a very close and familiar
environment. She didn't want her son to develop without roots in a
pluralist world that was not mutually binding. She could see how
baptism opened up a space for children where they could feel rooted
and supported.
The name
Sometimes parents are much more concerned about the name they
have chosen for the child than about anything else. But the name
itself isn't important. Sometimes, of course, the actual implications of
the name can affect an individual's life. One man called 'Donatus' (a
Latin word meaning 'Given by God') told me how intensely he
disliked this name when he was a child, but that now he was very
pleased he had been given it. He had become used to his name. Now
he saw himself as 'given', as God's gift. When choosing a name it is
also usual to select a patron, a saint who might be a role model. You
can grow into a name. A name is much more than just a name.
When I think about my patron saint by name I can discover
possibilities in myself that I would totally ignore otherwise. I am
called by my name and this expresses my individuality. When I think
about my name I am drawn increasingly into the mystery of my own
uniqueness. That can make it interesting and pleasant to be called by
name, and to be identified with the name my parents gave me.
Godparents
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into it once again. They want to be available to the child when the
parents reach the limits of their own capabilities of care and nurture.
Precisely when a child rebels against the parents (in adolescence,
say), it is helpful to have a third party outside the inner family circle
to turn to. Sometimes godparents bring a text to the ceremony that
says something to them about the mystery of baptism.
The reading
When the parents have given their answers, a special baptismal text
from the Bible is read out. In this case, too, it is a good idea for the
parents to decide which passage from scripture they think best
expresses the mystery of baptism. The standard form of the
baptismal rite offers a wide choice of suitable biblical references.
Some people choose a text that doesn't necessarily say anything
directly about baptism but might contain an image or words of
encouragement for their child's future life as they see it. Two parents
I know selected the text about the storm at sea and planned the
whole service against the background of this symbol. They turned
nutshells into little candle-holders to shine out symbolically on the
ocean of life. Other parents read out Psalm 139, which speaks of the
hand of God enclosing us on every side. They were particularly
impressed by the image of God's loving hand protecting the child.
Every child is protected by more than the hands of his or her father
and mother holding and touching it tenderly. Every child is
accompanied by an angel stretching a loving hand out to encircle
and defend him or her from danger, and to make sure that this child
is aware of God's inexhaustible love should the parents' love reach
the limits of their competence.
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After the sign of the cross, the saints are invoked and intercessions
made on the child's behalf. Parents and relatives can shape this part
in a very personal style. One way would be for each person present to
think about his or her patron saint and to express a wish for the child
in accordance with that saint's life and works. A mother called Mary
might hope that the child would be as ready as Mary to trust in God.
Or a Monica might wish that the child would never give up, even if
everything around him or her seemed hopeless. A father might wish
that his son would be able to fight as valiantly as St George. The
thing about St Anselm that fascinates me is that he was thought to be
the kindest and most likeable person of that time. And so I would
hope that the child would be given some part of Anselm's warm-
heartedness. Or the parents might study the child's patron more
closely before the baptism. Then, at this point in the ceremony, they
can relate something of his or her life and express a wish that the
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Laying on of hands
The rite then prescribes a laying on of hands and a prayer for the
child's protection. I suggest that not only the priest but the parents
lay their hands on the child's head or shoulders. Then the meaning of
the prayer will be made evident: that God wants to hold his loving
and protective hand over children always, to preserve them from evil
and defend them when danger threatens. To enforce the significance
of these words about protection the child is anointed with the oil of
catechumens, the oil of healing, so that Christ's healing power will
transform all his or her wounds into pearls. However careful and
loving the parents are, they will wound the child somehow.
Anointing with the oil of healing frees the parents from fear of their
own errors. It strengthens their confidence that Christ's curative
power will change these injuries into something valuable, into a
precious advantage that will enable the child to be open for people
and for God.
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Sea by the Israelites, when all their pursuing enemies, the Egyptians,
were drowned. It mentions blood and water, which flowed from the
pierced side of Jesus. In baptism the love of God made human flows
from Jesus's heart to remake the child. To help meditation on the
mystery of the baptismal water, a source-of-life or circle dance round
the font is a possibility here, to indicate our desire that this life-giving
water should start to flow in us too.
Renunciation of evil
After the blessing of the water the rite calls for a rejection of evil. This
was a very important rite in the early Church. Then, the candidates
made a conscious decision to reject the meaningless and godless life
they saw going on in the world around them. They opted instead for
a life with and in Christ. The rite certainly retains its full meaning
when an adult is baptized. It asks us to face up to the dangers that lie
in wait for us in life. The success of any life is not self-evident. It has
to expect challenges. The question is how to renounce evil nowadays
in a way that fits our experience. Today, evil appears in tendencies in
our society that trample on human dignity, in insensitivity and
undue rigour, in unjust structures, in destructive living conditions, in
force and terror. To ensure that the child is not infected by evil and
his or her potential is not maimed, the parents and relatives openly
reject evil. They express their readiness to oppose life-threatening
trends in our society, to resist assaults on human dignity, and forces
inimical to life.
Some people, however, find it difficult to utter the negative
statements as laid down in the formal rite. All one woman could
remember of a baptism she took part in was how frightened she was
because it seemed to go on about the Devil all the time. The rite of
renunciation can be arranged differently. Parents and godparents
can use their own words to say why they want nothing to do with
negative influences in our own times, and how they stand up against
them. Or they can express their resistance to destructive forces
symbolically, for instance by doing something that demarcates the
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After the renunciation and the confession of faith come the basic rites
of baptism: the pouring of water and anointing with chrism. The
children should be as close to the font as possible when the water is
poured. Children want to see and experience something. The
threefold pouring of water over the infant's head always fascinates
children. As he pours the water three times, the priest says: 'I baptize
you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
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Spirit.' The child is received into the community of the Holy Trinity.
He or she is baptized into the love between Father and Son that is
poured into human hearts in the Holy Spirit. If it seems appropriate,
the baptismal water can also be distributed to those round the font
by sprinkling a few drops on them, so that everyone experiences
something of the vitalizing and refreshing power of the water and
shares in the community of the threefold God.
Christ has given you new life through water and the Holy
Spirit. May he anoint you as a priest, so that you become
receptive to God's love; as a king, so that you live as a free
human being, aware of your divine worth; and as a prophet, so
that you proclaim the message that God wishes to resound in
the world through you alone.
Image of God
Then the baptismal garment, a white robe, is put on the child. The
rite comments on this by referring to Galatians 3.27, and makes the
point that the child puts on Christ himself like a garment and
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
hear the word of God properly and also proclaim it by mouth. The
deaf mute could communicate only in a limited way. He could not
relate to other people effectively. Many people today are members of
a lonely crowd, unable to relate to others. We relate to people
through our senses, with our ears, eyes, mouth, by touching and
smelling, with hands and feet. Therefore I extend the ephpheta rite to
include an opening of all the senses.
Baptism should represent the mystery of human life. A baptized
person's life is intended to be meaningful, communicative and lived
through the senses. An ability to relate to others is essential for this.
Only those who exist with all their senses can establish a good
relationship with God, people, things and themselves. I begin by
placing my hand on the child's mouth and saying that I trust these
lips will pronounce words to awaken life and secure peace, and
support and encourage other people. They should be words
overflowing with love, capable of healing wounds and of comforting
the distressed. Then the father and mother lay their hands on the
ears and eyes of their child and express the wishes that they have for
him or her.
A rite of this kind is an opportunity to express feelings and wishes
that would remain unspoken otherwise. It is very important how
children use their eyes: whether they close them to reality, or
perceive and wonder at the beauty of this world; whether they see
the goodness in every human being; whether their eyes radiate
warmth and liveliness or only spread depression. Children must also
use their ears to hear what God wants to tell them, and the inner
meaning of the words they hear from others' mouths.
They have to listen for intermediate and scarcely perceptible
sounds if they are to do justice to other people. They should be so
keen to hear what others have to say that people want to seek them
out in order to express themselves.
The godparents touch the child's hands and feet in blessing and
hope that he or she will use them to do good where there is need, that
they will be gentle, that they will give as well as take, and that they
will take their life into their hands and enjoy shaping and planning
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it. Children must follow the right road with their own feet. They
have to advance along their own inner way. They must find means of
access to others and constantly transform themselves on the road of
life until they arrive at the goal of their transformation.
One six-year-old in my church felt he just had to open his
brother's nose during baptism. He laid his finger on the infant's nose
and wished that he would always have something good to smell and
that he would be able to taste good things. Rites of this kind can
show parents, godparents and brothers and sisters what life really
means, and that the infant should experience life in its fullness. That
means life as God intended, with all the possibilities inherent in the
senses. We become aware of reality and relate to it through
our senses. The senses are also the location where we experience God
himself. They enrich our lives and make them productive.
The blessing
After these rites, which may also be interspersed with hymns, the
whole congregation says the Lord's Prayer together on behalf of the
child. It is very effective if at the same time all present join hands in
one or more circles. This shows that God is the true Father and true
Mother of this child and of us all, and that God alone can grant us
true security and refuge. While praying we show that the Spirit of
Jesus is flowing through our hands to unite us in God. Then the
mother and father are blessed.
The laying on of hands is the original form of blessing. With this
special form of benediction I ask that the mother should be able to
offer the child security and loving care, fundamental trust and
acceptance throughout her life. I also pray that she should not
exhaust her own resources in her love for the child but draw from the
well of God's own love, that she should always look thankfully at the
mystery of the child, and rejoice in its uniqueness. When I bless the
father I ask that he may share in the fatherhood of God, that he may
strengthen the child, and encourage him or her in the venture of life.
I trust that he will always be there for his son or daughter when he is
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needed, and that he or she will seek his help and share in his strength.
I hope that he will be able to accompany them on all the pathways of
their lives, wherever they may lead.
Then I bless all those present. I pronounce the blessing together
with the parents, who often choose or write their own words for the
occasion. When the parents pronounce a blessing over the congrega-
tion, their priestly role is made clear. They gave the child life because
God gave them the capability. Now, in this benediction, they want to
proclaim something of the fullness of life which God has in store for
everyone. A parents' blessing might be something like the following:
May God who is good and merciful bless you. May he keep his
hand outstretched over you and be a light to you on your way.
May he strengthen you with his power and be for you a source
from which you can always draw. May he always send you the
angel you need. May he help you up when life lets you down.
May he heal you when old wounds open up. May he go with
you wherever you may travel. May he enclose you in his
healing and loving kindness. And may he make you a source of
blessing for your brothers and sisters. May God of his gracious
goodness, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bless you.
The parents and godparents have to discuss with the actual celebrant
how they want to adapt the individual baptismal rites. It is more than
a question of designing something attractive. Preparation for and of the
rite should bring out the parents' understanding of what baptism
means. This will enable them to develop an ever-deeper idea of the
nature of the sacrament. The rite must reveal the effect it has. An
efficient preparation will touch on such questions as: What does it
mean to be a human being? What is life? What does it mean to be a
Christian? What is the true significance of baptism? What is the
mystery of Christian life? What does an option for Christ mean and
what does accompanying Christ on his way imply? What effects do the
rites have? Are they just an appealing piece of play-acting, or do we
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BAPTISM
really believe in what is going on? How close to us is God? How close to
us does Jesus come in baptism and how does he affect our lives? Would
I shape my life in the same way without Christ, or does Jesus actually
influence the way in which I live, think and behave? When parents get
together with the priest to prepare the ceremony appropriately, does it
mean anything more for them than a clerical pep talk about the
importance of making sure the child has a Christian education?
When they study the rites of baptism many parents rediscover
their Christian roots. My intention when discussing the sacrament
with them is not to give them a bad conscience in the hope that they
will start living like Christians again. Instead, in the course of talking
about the rites, I awaken their interest in considering for themselves
how they want to see and experience their lives as Christians. Then
they begin to realize that the Christian faith is not something far
removed from this world, but makes possible a life defined by
freedom and dignity, love and security, strength and fixity of
purpose. They see that faith really helps them to live their lives
authentically, so that they can talk sincerely about the quality of life.
I I I . BAPTISMAL LIFE
Baptismal renewal
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
living on the basis of the real meaning of baptism imply for those of
us who were baptized as children? For me, life on the basis of
baptism means living a more aware and authentic life. It means
existing by the power of another dimension, by the effects of the
dimension of grace and not by the yardstick of achievement. It
means freedom in the face of the world's expectations, acting from
that source within me and not by my own power. The fact that I am
baptized makes me ask, throughout my life: What does it mean to be
a human being? Who am I really? Where do I come from? Where am
I going? What do I want to do with my life? What is the mystery of
my life? What does it mean to be a Christian? How does Jesus Christ
see my life? What does he say to me today? What opportunities will I
have today of living in communion with Jesus Christ? Do I live
differently from people who are not baptized? If so, how exactly?
I am baptized
We are told that Martin Luther engraved the Latin words Baptizatus
sum - 'I am baptized' - on his desk. Whenever he was depressed, and
was tempted by doubts about himself and by feelings of inferiority, he
looked at this declaration and told himself: 'I am baptized.' For him
this meant: 'It's not a question of my achieving anything. It isn't so
much whether everything I do is right and just, or I live in the right
way in the sight of God himself. The decisive factor is that God has
accepted me unconditionally, that he loves me impartially, that God
justifies me, and that my justification comes from God and not from
my achievements.' Similarly, remembering our own baptism might
mean assuring ourselves that we are God's beloved sons and
daughters. We all have a profound longing to be loved and to be
capable of loving. Baptism tells us that we are loved absolutely, that
no part of us is excluded from this divine love. Love is the basic fact on
which we can build our life. Furthermore, God's love is not fragile like
the love that we receive from human beings. It is not ambivalent like
the love our parents give us, for all too often they also expect us to be
grateful for that love, or want to keep us firmly clasped within it.
Whenever we doubt our own capacities, when we feel inferior, when
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BAPTISM
In communion
Being baptized means not only that I live by the waters of a divine
spring but that I am in communion with Jesus Christ. When I
35
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
examine myself I not only face my own life-history but Jesus Christ
as my innermost reality. I have developed together with him in
baptism. How does this finding affect my life and my self-image? For
me, meditation on my baptism means that I do not feel alone. When
I am sitting down at my desk to write this book I don't have to
labour over the sequence of my thoughts, for Jesus Christ is with me
and in me. I don't have to think about him all the time. I don't have
to delve into my Bible continually to come into contact with him. He
is within me. If I am fully aware of that, I feel liberated from the
pressure of having to weather the storms of my life. I know that I am
in a relationship. Awareness of Jesus within me allows love to flow
through my physical self. I am not isolated but immersed in a love
that concerns me personally but is intended to flow through me and
beyond me, into this world. For me, growing together with Jesus
Christ means that I am never lonely. It means that even in the
solitariness that might encircle me outside this inward relationship I
am never without support, never without love, and never without
protection.
Holy water
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BAPTISM
now, I stand before God, free of everything that might stain and
defile me. Holy water stands for the promise that I can start my life
all over again, that I can posit a new beginning each day, and that I
am not determined by the past, by the wounds of my life-history, or
by my guilt and failures. I sign myself with the cross on my forehead,
my chest, my left and right shoulders, and thereby acknowledge that
God's life and love flow in my thoughts, in my vitality and sexuality,
in my unconscious and in my conscious mind, and that everything in
me is unconditionally accepted and loved, including those aspects of
myself that I want to exclude. By crossing myself with holy water I
come into contact with the spring that rises in me and quenches my
thirst. I feel that I am immersed in God's own life and love.
The holy water also reminds me that I died to this world in baptism.
The world and its standards no longer have any power over me. What
the world thinks of me is not important now. I don't have to rely on the
world that surrounds me for confirmation. I live in this world, but I am
not of it. Then I feel free. Every morning, when I enter the church at
five o'clock and take holy water I tell myself: 'Today you don't have to
prove yourself. You are not of the world. The yardsticks of this world,
such as success and recognition, being liked, having a use-value, don't
apply to you. Live by your innermost reality! Live by the power of
Jesus Christ!' As I carefully sign myself with holy water, I increasingly
realize what it means to be a Christian: to be free, to be loved, to live
by God's own reality, and to enjoy an irreducible value.
Putting on Christ
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A royal person
I can also recall my baptism by holding my head high as I make my
way through life, by acknowledging my royal status. This means that
I am aware of my dignity and value. If I am in control of myself
instead of being run from somewhere else, and if I am truly at peace
with myself, I realize what it means to live in my own right instead of
being the passive object of other people's commands and of events.
By keeping the image of a king or queen, of a prophet, or of a priest
before me, I shall begin to experience myself differently. When I do
that, I shall think and act differently as well. My mind will no longer
be ruled by comparisons with others, or by resentment, annoyance
and anger at them and their behaviour. As a royal person I shall also
respect their worth. Then I shan't have to worry about them all the
time, let alone devalue or insult them in order to feel superior. If I
feel right in my own skin I can allow other people the space they
need to experience their own dignity and value.
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BAPTISM
SUMMARY
39
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
grasp anew what it means to share in the divine nature and to have
developed together with Christ himself.
Baptism for the early Christians was an overwhelming experience;
so much so that they never forgot it and were always vividly aware of
their life's true origin. Most of us who were baptized as children and
take part in a baptism now will find it inspiring to realize that all
these rites were celebrated for us very early in our lives. That
awareness will enable us to meditate on the ceremonies and to decide
what it means to have been anointed as priests, monarchs and
prophets, to have been baptized by water and the Holy Spirit, and to
have had our senses opened. Then we shall begin to understand who
we really are, what the mystery of our life could mean, and what the
mystery of Jesus Christ, with whom we have progressed to a new
stage in baptism, might imply for us.
This remembrance of our own baptism could help us to a new
awareness of our own Christian identity. We are always in danger of
adapting to this world. Sometimes we really do not know why we are
Christians at all, and what distinguishes us from others who look for
salvation in the general marketplace of spiritual options. Nowadays
we need resources that will help us to live as Christians in full
awareness of our Christianity, not by turning aside from this world
but by living consciously in it, knowing that we are in the world but
not of it. We need to discover what our Christian freedom and
dignity imply, and to live accordingly. Our existence today is
menaced by a vast number of tendencies that inhibit any life worthy
of the name, and we need advice on how to be as we can and should
be. It is a question of entry to and practice in everlasting life: a life
that extends even now into the very life of God himself, and is
interwoven with God's own immortal life.
Remembering our own baptism can be a most effective way of
reaching a new understanding, day by day, of the real nature of our
faith and existence, and thus of living as people more vitally aware
than ever before of what it means to be truly Christian.
40
2
The Eucharist: transformation
and union
INTRODUCTION
The Eucharist is the sacrament we celebrate most often. Priests say
Mass every day. Many Christians attend Mass every Sunday. In
recent years, however, church attendance has declined considerably
in many countries. In that sense, the Sunday celebration of the
Eucharist may be said to have reached crisis point. Young people
complain that going to Mass is boring and say they try to leave as
quickly as possible once it's over. It doesn't 'do anything' for them.
Adults feel that they have been present at a rite that no longer really
concerns them, and that its language passes over the vital issues of
their lives.
There have been many attempts to make celebrating the
Eucharist more varied and lively. But members of creative parishes
often find they are constantly under pressure to achieve something
different. They feel that they constantly have to devise even more
attractive and imaginative presentations of the Eucharist. But then
the emphasis is more on the 'production' than on the mystery that is
being celebrated.
If we ask why the Eucharist has lost its fascination, we soon arrive
at the main question: how are we to express our faith in this
postmodern age?
The problems of the contemporary Church, of present-day society
as a whole, in fact, are concentrated in the question of how the
Eucharist should be celebrated now. Our present age tends to
formlessness. It nibbles at a whole range of ways of celebrating this or
that, or puts obstacles in the way of celebration altogether. The
Eucharist is also a commemoration which offers inspiring accounts of
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
past events. But our age is totally ahistorical. People don't want to
remember the past and learn from it. They want to forget what has
happened as fast as they can. The important thing, they suppose, is
to experience the here-and-now as hectically as possible. It has been
said that nowadays our lives are almost devoid of history and that
our attitude to time is short-sighted, and short of breath as well. The
Eucharist is a communal celebration. But this is an individualistic
age and we find it difficult to experience any sense of true
community. All the problems of group dynamics in the life we lead
with others emerge in the eucharistic community. We don't feel like
going to Mass because we don't get on with many of the people we
see there. Another problem is our inarticulacy. Our culture is
certainly garrulous, but we find it difficult to convey our faith in
language that really moves people. In the end, not just crapulous
talk-show chatter but the jargon of corporate brainstorming and
ecclesiastical discourse are forms of conversation in which no one
actually relates to other people, or meets them in any true sense.
Nowadays we keep asking what's in it for us. Everything has to be
personally advantageous. If we take part in the Eucharist in this
egotistical frame of mind, we shall experience it as pointless and
boring, and 'get nothing out of it'.
The question is whether we ought to adapt the Eucharist to our
times and whether such attempts have any hope of success. Of course
any rite always has to be re-examined and reshaped. But tinkering
with it won't make the Eucharist more appealing. It is essential to
understand the Eucharist so that it says something to us again and
fascinates us. Then the difficulties peculiar to our postmodern age,
which are intensified in the Eucharist, will become a challenge to
create oases as resources against the laying waste of vast tracts of our
world. We need to refresh ourselves at these watering-points before
we begin our hazardous journey through the wilderness.
The very inarticulacy of our own times makes it necessary to learn
a new language that can touch human hearts and open up new
spaces in which people can live effectively. The general inability to
relate to others compels us to fashion a new form of togetherness in
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EUCHARIST
the midst of this self-centred life. We have to oppose the lack of any
historical awareness by retelling the old narratives so that we
rediscover ourselves in them and they can help us to exist now in a
different and more conscious way. We must counter oblivion by
celebrating the main events of our history - Jesus's death and
resurrection - so that their relevance to all the instances of suffering
in our world is made clear. We have to celebrate liturgy together in
order to combat vagueness and obscurity and hold back the
spreading wasteland of our times. Then we shall create new oases
of vitality in the spirit of an age which records its achievements in the
flickering of the latest digital watch. To oppose the tyranny of utility
and profit-value we need spaces from which expediency is banished
and where we seek only to express our humanity as redeemed
Christians. In an age so focused on self, we need places where the
rule of ego has been overthrown and our vision is unobscured, where
we can look for God, and where heaven opens to reveal our earth in
a new light.
My intention in this section of the book is to show daily and
Sunday mass-goers ways of experiencing their regular celebrations
differently and more consciously, so that they can totally change
their everyday lives and find a new pleasure in living. We must
constantly rediscover what we are actually celebrating in the
Eucharist and why we go to church. Otherwise our churchgoing
will be mere routine and we shall be unable to convey its point to our
children. If we don't do this, we shall keep using the same old cliches
to cover up our doubts. But what do you say if your child asks why
you go to Mass on Sunday? What do you 'get out of it'? What exactly
are you celebrating? W 7 hat are you looking for?
I know many people who have a deep longing for the Eucharist.
Often enough they can't say precisely what it is that takes them to
church. They just know that they need to celebrate the Eucharist to
live as convinced Christians. One woman told me that for her the
most important thing about it was the opportunity to forget herself in
church. When she went to communion she could just drop into
Christ, as it were. She could let go of herself and all her problems as
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
she surrendered to Christ's love and lost herself in it. For her, every
communion was a moment of absolute freedom and love. In these
few but utterly intense moments she came into contact with the very
mystery of life. This was what took her to the Eucharist regularly.
In recent decades many non-Catholic Christians whose traditions
were not emphatically eucharistic have rediscovered the Eucharist.
Their concept of the Eucharist and the Catholic understanding of it
have become very close, not only in the form of the service, but
theologically. Whereas some churches preferred terms such as 'the
Lord's Supper' or 'Holy Communion', and Catholics always referred
to 'the Mass', nowadays they and Catholics both use the word
'Eucharist'. Eucharist means thanksgiving. We thank God for
everything that he has done to and for us in Jesus Christ. Essentially,
this section is addressed to all Christians in a time when many
people, non-Catholics and Catholics, attend the Eucharist celebrated
in other traditions - Reformed, Anglican or Episcopalian, Orthodox
or Catholic. Before the authorities in the various churches reach the
point of agreeing on actual intercommunion, Christians of different
denominations now invite each other to communion: to experience
union with Christ in thanksgiving. I hope that this section, indeed
the whole book, will help to make the Eucharist increasingly the
sacrament of union, a leaven in the biblical sense that interpenetrates
and joins all Christians together.
Nowadays many Christians live in a secularized environment with
no comprehension of the Christian faith, let alone of the Eucharist.
For instance, I know young people brought up in the areligious
atmosphere of the formerly Communist East Germany. They have
some idea that the mystery of Christianity is to be found in the
Eucharist. But they can't explain to themselves and their unbelieving
friends what that actually means. People of that kind are to be found
everywhere. The following pages are directed to them too. In the
Acts of the Apostles Philip asks: 'Do you understand what you are
reading?' (Acts 8.30). Similarly, I want to accompany all those who
have begun to look for their true destination in life, and ask them
with regard to the Eucharist: 'Do you understand what you are
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EUCHARIST
When the Israelites celebrated a feast, they always recalled the great
deeds of God. Israel saw God as an historical God who acts in history
and shapes it. His wonderful acts are historical events. The most
important feast of all, Passover, commemorated the Exodus of the
Hebrews from Egypt. The Israelites saw this Exodus as the
fundamental miracle of their existence. God had delivered this little
nation from the power of the Egyptians. He had freed the Hebrews
from ruthless overseers who had constantly demanded more labour
from their slaves. He had liberated them from dependency and an
inability to act in their own right. He had led them through the Red
Sea and the wilderness, until they reached the Promised Land, the
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
46
EUCHARIST
47
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
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EUCHARIST
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
isn't a disaster, the failure of his mission, but the way in which his
ultimate devotion to us is expressed. He gives himself to his disciples
in the broken bread. It is a sign of the love with which he loves us
beyond death. It is this love we must realize in each Eucharist. His
love is the foundation on which we can build and the source from
which we draw life. Jesus interprets the wine as his blood, which is the
basis of the new covenant, or agreement. Blood is a symbol of love
shed for us. The new covenant, which Jesus recalls at the Last Supper,
is the promise of God's unconditional love. The old covenant relied
on a reciprocal commitment. God bound himself to human beings on
condition that they kept his commandments. But here God binds
himself to us out of love. He trusts that the love which becomes
evident in his total devotion will transform our hearts.
The question is how we should understand Jesus's symbolic act at
the Last Supper. Any philosophical speculation about how Jesus can
sacrifice himself in bread and wine will get us nowhere. We can
explain the nature of the eucharistic meal only by the experience of
human love.
Maria Caterina Jacobelli, an Italian folklorist who has written a
book about Easter joy, interprets the mystery of the meal from the
perspective of human love:
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EUCHARIST
51
THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
and from Christ so that we can live by this love, immerse ourselves in
it, and become sources of love for others.
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EUCHARIST
for life will be satisfied. Now, however, at the high point of his
explanation of the meaning of the Bread of Life, Jesus says that the
bread he will offer is his body, which he will give Tor the life of the
world' (John 6.51). The revelation of his love culminates in his death
on the cross. Jesus loved us infinitely on the cross. At this culminating
point of his love he wants us to share in each celebration of the
Eucharist. In the eucharistic bread he offers us his body and gives us
his love in physical form. That was unacceptable for the Jews of his
time. Today, as well, many people find it incredible. They find it
difficult to associate the Eucharist with the terms 'body and blood'.
Blood reminds them of brutal scenes in which blood is shed. One
woman told me that she couldn't drink from the chalice when the
priest offered it to her, saying: 'The blood of Christ.' It reminded her
of the slaughter of pigs on her parents' farm. Many people nowadays
react similarly. But Jesus answers them in exactly the same way as he
did the people then who just couldn't handle the notion: 'My body is
real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my body and
drinks my blood shares my life and I share theirs' (John 6.55f.).
Jesus's way of talking is not 'bloodthirsty' but the language of
love. When we speak the language of love nowadays we also talk of
individuals whose hearts bleed for others. For Jesus, body and blood
are symbols of his sacrifice on the cross. That was a natural part of
the harsh reality of torture and punishment in the Roman world. But
for Jesus sacrifice on the cross is the expression of his total and
unending love. John uses the Greek word lelos in this context. Telos
means 'goal', 'turning-point', 'pivot'. Our fate turns on the pivot of
the cross. There, love finally conquers hatred. Telos also means:
'initiation into mystery'. On the cross Jesus initiates us into the
mystery of divine love. John sees the Eucharist as initiation into
God's love, which alone makes our lives truly worth living. By eating
(here John refers to 'chewing') the bread and by drinking from the
cup we enter into inconceivably profound communion with Jesus
Christ. We remain in Jesus Christ and he remains in us. We shall be
indistinguishably one with him. We shall be filled and fulfilled by his
love. As we are penetrated by it, we experience the nature of real life:
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EUCHARIST
where the other gospels record the institution of the Eucharist. John
sees the washing of feet as a demonstration of Jesus's will to love to
the point of absolute devotion (John 13.Iff.). We experience this
absolute love in the Eucharist. It is enacted there just as it is
expressed in the symbol of washing feet. We arrive with dusty and
grubby feet, like the disciples. On our way through the world we
have been stained with sin and guilt. We have made our feet sore and
injured. So many people have wounded us in our Achilles heel, have
repeatedly stabbed us where we are most sensitive. In the Eucharist
Jesus bends down to us to touch us tenderly where we are most easily
hurt, on our Achilles heel, and to heal our wounds. He bends down
to wash the dirt from our feet. He accepts us lovingly, quite without
reserve, precisely where we think we are most unacceptable, and
know ourselves to be filthy and unclean.
The washing of feet is a symbolic enactment of what happens in
every Eucharist. In John's account, too, Jesus asks the disciples to do
the same for him. They are to wash one another's feet. Jesus's request
not only means that we should serve one another but is essentially an
image of the Eucharist. By holding the sacred meal, listening to what
Jesus says, and recalling what he did, we behave towards one
another as Jesus behaved towards us.
Remembrance for John is primarily commemoration of Jesus's
love which he offered us totally in his death on the cross. But the
Eucharist signifies not merely commemoration but action. We wash
one another's feet in the Eucharist by opening ourselves to Jesus's
love, and by not reproaching one another for our mutual guilt but
accepting one another unconditionally with the same love that we
experience through Jesus. According to John's gospel, the Eucharist
is also the place where we should show one another our wounds. We
approach the Eucharist not as guiltless but as hurt and grimy
individuals. We should not conceal our injuries. We can display
them and show them to Christ together. He will wash them and his
love will cure them.
At the Last Supper with the disciples, Jesus makes a long farewell
speech which discloses a third aspect of the Eucharist as John sees it.
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John understands the Eucharist as the place where the risen and
exalted Lord appears among his disciples and addresses them. The
scene on Easter Eve when Jesus appears among the frightened
disciples behind closed doors describes what occurs in every
Eucharist. There Jesus, now with God, appears in the assembled
community and speaks to them in the language of love. What he says
is similar to the statements in his farewell speeches: words radiating
his love, which has vanquished death. These words cross the barrier
of death, come from eternity and open heaven over us. They join
heaven and earth and efface the boundary between death and life.
John sees the human inability to love as humanity's most urgent
need. What people generally call love is merely clutching at others,
clinging to them. Jesus came among us to make us capable of true
love. The Eucharist is where we are intended to perceive God's love
in Jesus's words, so that we can become capable of loving one
another truly again.
Jesus not only addresses the disciples but shows them his hands and
side (John 20.20). His pierced hands and opened side are signs of his
absolute love for us. In the broken bread we touch the maimed hands
he held out to be tortured for us, not abandoning us when they were
nailed to the wood of the cross. In the wine we drink the love that
flowed for us from his lanced heart. When we touch his wounds in
communion we should trust in the miracle by which our own wounds
will be healed. In his punctured hands we meet the Jesus who acted
for us, who healed the sick and encouraged the faint-hearted. There,
the whole history of Jesus becomes our present moment.
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In the cup we offer God not only wine but all the world's joy and
suffering. The chalice stands for the afflictions of humankind but also
for our longing for true ecstasy, for a love that totally enchants us and
elevates us in body and soul. In the chalice we take up our life
together with everything that has collected within us, all our pains
and desires, joy and suffering, and hold it up for everyone to see.
Everything in our chalice is worthy to be raised in the presence of
God. Everything can be changed into the blood of Jesus, into love
that has become human, and longs to penetrate everything within us.
I realized in a dream I had once that our whole life is transformed
in the offerings of bread and wine. I dreamed that I was celebrating
Mass together with our Abbot. We adapted the rites, each in his own
way. During the offertory we held our watches over the bread and
wine so that galloping time would be transformed. Our work, time,
restlessness, problems, distraction, cares and everything else were
placed on the altar and transformed by God's Spirit flowing down on
the offerings, as we asked.
Some people think that because the Eucharist is the feast of God's
love, it cannot or should not be celebrated every day. But we can
confidently celebrate each day the transformation of our world, our
life-histories, our relationships, our work, our worries and our daily
grind. When we do so, we express the truth that even during every
day's mundane events we are not alone, and that the Eucharist is
intended to affect and change even the most banal aspects of our
lives. If I believe that in the bread and wine God transforms my
world too, I can work more freely, hope with sure trust that
everything will not remain as it is, that old conflicts will be resolved,
and that everything burdensome will be become lighter.
Every day I can offer something new to be changed. I can ask for
the particular thing that concerns me at this moment, or that
oppresses me, or makes me less effective, and is an obstacle to leading
an effective life, to be transformed. The Eucharist is an expression of
my hope that celebrating Jesus's death and resurrection will coax
even the stubborn and petrified aspects of my self into new life.
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(cf. Titus 3.4). The Greek word philanthropia = 'love of humans' (in
this context) was translated into Latin as humanitas — 'humanity' or
'human image'. The image of humankind as envisioned by God was
revealed in Christ. It is the image of a person who is wholly one with
God, and permeated with God's goodness and love. The eucharistic
rites represent the mystery of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, God's
vision of us human beings becoming one with him. The various
actions of mixing (for instance, the commingling of water and wine
and the immersion of bread in wine) express our becoming one with
God like Jesus.
In the Eucharist we celebrate not only Jesus's Incarnation but his
death and Resurrection, the culminating points of his Incarnation.
Even the dark abysses of death are transformed by Christ. Even in
death we cannot be separated from union with God. By representing
the mysteries of Jesus's incarnation and of his death and resurrection,
the Church enables us to share in them. Then we are received into
the mystery of the way Jesus followed, which leads us to union with
God. It also assures us that we can no longer be separated from
Christ's love, which makes us indistinguishably one with God.
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throughout his life in order to share himself and his love with us.
Jesus is essentially 'for being' and 'for life'. In the breaking of bread
we express our innermost desire that someone should be there for us
whole and entire, and to such an extent that he commits himself to us
and loves us to the point of death.
When breaking bread the first Christians also recalled the
accounts of the multiplication of loaves that we find in all the
gospels. The structure of these descriptions of Jesus breaking loaves
and giving a blessing is the same as that of the Eucharist. In Mark we
read: 'Then he took the seven loaves into his hands, and with a
prayer of thanksgiving broke them, and gave them to the disciples to
distribute to the people' (Mark 8.6). The breaking of bread here is
about sharing. The disciples are to share their bread with the
listening crowd.
Dividing and sharing make up an important symbol of the
celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is not only an invitation
to share our possessions with others, and to give the hungry our
bread. Inherently it is a celebration of sharing. We share our time
and space with each other. By committing ourselves to this
celebration in common, to singing and prayer, and to the people
who are eating with us, we share our lives, wishes and aspirations,
feelings and needs, fears and hopes with them. By sharing our lives in
the Eucharist we create an opportunity for fellowship and hospitality
to prevail, resulting in commitment, warmth and mutual concern.
Sharing is healing. Sharing makes something fractured whole. The
bread we break for each other allows us to hope that what is torn and
riven within us will be repaired to the point of wholeness. Then our
fragmented lives will come together again. The breaking of bread is
also an invitation to break ourselves open for each other, to shatter
our emotional armour and open our hearts for each other.
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Introductory Rites
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live an 'ensouled' life, conscious of our divine worth, and assured that
we are more than the world that seeks to imprison us.
Like all forms of worship, the Eucharist contains a number of
introductory rites. The celebration starts with the 'Introit', or
entrance hymn. The congregation sing as they enter the mystery of
love which God wishes them to perceive in the Eucharist. The priest
has already prepared for the celebration when putting on his
vestments in the sacristy. As he takes up each piece of sacred clothing
he says a special prayer. Together with the acolytes or servers he has
silently composed himself for the sacred action. Then the doors to the
church are opened. At this point priests in the Eastern Church say:
'Now, Lord, I shall enter your house and pray to you in your temple
in holy awe.' Then the priests and servers bow before the altar and
mount the steps.
The priest kisses the altar. His kiss expresses tenderness and love.
A kiss is the most intense form of touch we can offer each other. The
altar symbolizes Christ. When kissing the altar the priest touches
Christ in order to receive his strength and love. By this he shows that
he does not celebrate the Eucharist by himself but by virtue of
Christ's strength and love. He kisses the altar to inhale the divine
atmosphere and drink from the fountain of life. The priest touches
the altar several times during the Mass to make sure that he is acting
by the power of the altar.
The Sign of the Cross is the key that opens the doors to the space
of love for Christians as they enter the Eucharist. When the early
Christians signed themselves with the cross, they showed that they
belonged to God and not to the world, that no earthly ruler could
dominate them. For them it was an honourable distinguishing mark.
By making this sign they engraved Christ's love on their bodies. We
bless ourselves when we make the sign of the cross. First we touch our
forehead, then our chest, then our shoulders, left then right. By this
we show that Jesus Christ loves everything in us: our thoughts,
vitality and sexuality, our unconscious and conscious mind. And so
we begin the Eucharist with the sign of love, to show the real purpose
of the celebration from the start. The Mass is about really
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Then we hold out our hands to each other, and offer God our
relationships together with everything that unites and everything
that separates us:
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The Readings
The Liturgy of the Word begins with the First and Second Readings
and the Gospel. The arrangement and choice of readings were
introduced after the Second Vatican Council, and provide a rich
selection of biblical texts. The Word is effective in its own right. We
must be attentive in order not only to hear the words through our
ears but to ensure that they drop into our hearts. Then we must be
silent so that the Word can sink into our hearts. When the Word
enters our hearts it will do its work there, but to ensure that it is
received in the first place the reader must speak the words from the
depths of his or her own heart. People have to sense that this is a
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The Preparation of the Gifts begins with the Procession with the
Gifts, or Offertory Procession, which is not so general a practice as in
the past. Its deep meaning is that we actually bear our world before
God. When the celebrants or representatives of the congregation take
the paten(s) and chalice(s) slowly and carefully to the altar, they
bring before God the paten revealing the fracture of our world and
the chalice disclosing the suffering and longing of all humanity.
The Eucharist is more than a pious private celebration by a group
of Christians. A changing effect for the whole world will radiate from
the transformation of the bread and wine. Christ died for the whole
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After the Preparation of the Gifts comes the central rite of the
Eucharist, the Eucharistic Prayer. It is introduced by the Preface, a
hymn of praise for God's saving action towards us. The congregation
answer the Preface with an acclamation, the 'Sanctus', or 'Holy,
holy, holy', thus joining in the angels' song of praise. This shows that
the celebrating community is not closed in on itself but a window is
opening into heaven for its members, so that they can participate in
the heavenly liturgy. I always find it very moving when we
concelebrate in the abbey and sing the 'Sanctus' standing together
round the altar. Then I feel that I am singing it in the company of all
my brothers who lived and praised God here in the past, that heaven
is opening above us, and that heaven and earth are touching each
other now.
Then the priest says the Eucharistic Prayer, for which several
versions are prescribed. In its first part (the 'Post Sanctus') the
Eucharistic Prayer continues the praise initiated in the Preface.
Then, in the 'Epiclesis', the Holy Spirit is asked to descend on the
gifts of bread and wine, to change them into the Body and Blood of
Christ. The priest extends his hands over the gifts to shows that the
life-giving Spirit of God is poured out over bread and wine in order
to transform them into Christ's Body and Blood. Then comes the
Consecration, which always follows the main lines of the formula
handed down by the evangelists and St Paul.
After the consecration the priest elevates the Host and the chalice
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containing the Wine so that everyone can see them. Everyone must
be aware of the mystery of Christ's presence among us, and everyone
must look up at him. 'For it was life that appeared before us' (1 John
1.2). Here this statement is reality. The meaning of this rite has
always been sharing in the mystery of the Lord apparent and
perceived. The Israelites' snake-bites were healed when they looked
at the brazen image of the serpent. When they gazed at the Host the
faithful in the past hoped that their wounds would be healed by its
sacred power. When the consecrated Host was shown to the
congregation the line from the Psalms became reality: 'Restore us,
O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved!' (Ps. 80.7).
The priest always follows the elevation by genuflecting, by kneeling
in prayer before the mystery of God's love which now shines forth for
us in Jesus Christ. The congregation answer the priest's 'Let us
proclaim the mystery of faith' with the words: 'When we eat this
bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until
you come in glory', or 'My Lord and my God', or a similar formula,
depending on the country and occasion.
The consecration proper is followed by the 'anamnesis', a prayer
in which we consider all God's redemptive and liberating acts in
Jesus Christ, recalling especially Jesus's Death, Resurrection and
Ascension. Everything that God has done in Jesus Christ is now here
among us and for us. The effects of his healing, liberating and saving
power will be felt in us and in the whole world. This prayer is
followed by petitions for the Church, for the parish or community
assembled here, and for the dead with whom the congregation are
united. The Eucharistic Prayer closes with the 'doxology', or praise,
and the congregation answer with the 'Great Amen'. During the
doxology the priest elevates the gifts of bread and wine to show that
Christ himself is the actual Celebrant and Petitioner. God will
bestow glory and honour on everyone through Christ. Earlier, the
priest held the Host over the raised chalice. This has a deep meaning,
for the round Host stands for the Sun who in the Resurrection has
vanquished all darkness for ever. The chalice containing Jesus's
Blood symbolizes the depths of the soul into which the Sun casts his
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light, and the countless ranks of the dead who are transformed by the
resurrection. The chalice also stands for the maternal earth from
which Christ rises as the Sun.
Altogether, this brief rite expresses the mystery of the Resurrec-
tion. On the morning of the Lord's rising from the dead, the women
came to the tomb 'just as the sun was rising' (Mark 16.2). In the
Resurrection Christ has risen as the true Sun. 'The people who sat in
darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region
and shadow of death light has dawned' (Matt. 4.16). Now Christ's
sun shines out over all those many tombs where we dwell, over the
graves of our fear, our resignation and our depression. God will give
everyone honour and glory in the risen Lord. Through him and in
him we ourselves share in God's glory.
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After the Lord's Prayer, the priest prays for peace in the world
and invites everyone to offer the Sign of Peace. Here, too, I advise
caution and respect for the inhibitions some people have about
approaching one another. In group services there is always a danger
of majority pressure forcing people to embrace each other and make
a sign of peace when they find it embarrassing. With goodwill,
however, this sign of peace can express our joint celebration and our
readiness to accept one another, for we intend to unite in communion
with Christ and with the whole congregation.
The Sign of Peace is followed by the Breaking of the Bread, or
Fraction of the Host. The congregation are often unaware of this
apparently minor action by the priest. But it is an important part of
the rite. The early Christians often called the whole Eucharist the
Breaking of Bread. The breaking of the bread is a symbol of Christ's
readiness to be broken on the cross for us, so that life can no longer
break us. He broke himself open in order to heal our fractures and
unite the fragments of our lives. The breaking of the bread reminds
us that we too are shattered and injured people, but that the
resurrected Christ towers over all our fragments to make everything
true and whole again.
After the breaking of the bread, the priest dips a tiny piece of the
Host in the chalice. The early Christians saw this action, known as
'tincture', as an image of Christ's Resurrection. Body and Blood are
symbols of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross; similarly, the immersion of
the bread in the wine stands for the union of Jesus's Body and Blood
in the Resurrection. I see this as a moving symbol of the healing of
the cleavages in my life when they are immersed in Christ's love,
which fills the chalice. My life is restored to wholeness when it is
dipped in the blood of Jesus, who died and rose for me.
The Fathers called the bread dipped in the wine fermentum, or
'leaven'. They interpreted this brief action as a symbol of the union
of Christ's earthly and heavenly nature. At this point in their liturgy
the Syrian Jacobites say the following prayer: 'Lord, you have
mingled your Godhead with our humanity and our humanity with
your Godhead, your life with our mortality . . . you take on what was
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ours and have given us what is yours so that our souls may live and
be healed.'
The commingling of bread and wine also recalls the union of man
and woman. Jung sees bread as female and wine as male.
Accordingly, this action expresses our longing for union, for the
sacred marriage in which anima and animus are no longer opposed
but fertilize, or fructify, each other, and become one in the unity for
which God made us. The bread and wine stand for solid and liquid,
and for all contraries in this world. They become one in the process
of immersion. Similarly, all those aspects of ourselves that so often
conflict with each other are always capable of uniting to form a
whole. The liturgy of St Basil the Great calls the mingling of the
bread and wine the moment of'sacred unification'.
Then the priest elevates the Host, saying: 'This is the Lamb of
God who takes away the sins of the world.' These are the words with
which John the Baptist told his disciples to follow Christ. In the
bread the priest shows us Christ, the Redeemer and Saviour, who
loved us infinitely. These words invite me, just as I am, to look up at
Christ and find my salvation in him. Neither my sins nor my feelings
of guilt need stop me now from actually experiencing God's love in
communion. When I hear this reference to the Lamb of God, I
always hear, too, the words with which John ended his testimony on
behalf of Jesus: 'Now I have seen this happen and I declare publicly
before you all that he is the Son of God!' (John 1.34). Everyone
answers with the words of the centurion to Jesus when he said he
would heal the officer's servant: 'I am not worthy.' Many people find
these words difficult to say. They associate saying they're not
important enough with their experiences when their parents or the
Church made them feel 'small'. I can quite understand how these
people feel. But I don't think that these negative echoes justify
dismissing the quotation. One non-Catholic Christian told me when
we were discussing these words that this was his favourite among all
the sayings in the Catholic liturgy. We shouldn't feel inferior when
we repeat this statement but see how it deepens our awareness of the
mystery of communion, when we receive the Son of God. This is not
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touched them with their hands to sanctify their eyes, forehead and
the other senses. In the communion rite Christians at that time
signified their awareness that Jesus also touched their blind eyes so
they might see, and opened their ears so that they might speak and
listen in the right way. They showed that they were meeting Jesus
Christ through their senses.
In the Middle Ages, fear of infection led to withdrawal of the
chalice from the laity. But there were other ways of protecting
communicants. In some places they dipped the bread in the chalice.
In Rome they used tubes or reeds like our present-day straws to
drink from the chalice. Nowadays, when appropriate, the chalice
should be offered to everyone, for instance during group Masses, at
weddings, at weekday Masses, on Holy Thursday and on Corpus
Christi. In Christ's Blood we drink God's love become flesh so that it
can permeate our entire body and suffuse us with the taste of love. As
I take the chalice I can think of Christ's healing power flowing into
all the wounds and sick areas of my body and soul. Or I might recall
these words from the Song of Solomon: 'Your love is sweeter than
wine', (S. of S. 4.10) and realize that I am experiencing Christ's love
physically.
After the prayer of the faithful the priest may say something like:
'Whoever eats this Bread will live for ever.' I like to repeat some
words from the Bible during Communion. This will show that what
is described in the Bible is happening to us now. If the reference is to
an account of healing I sometimes say: 'I want to be whole!' or:
Jesus said to the cripple: "Stand, pick up your bed and walk!"'
When the chalice is offered, I recall the healing of the woman who
had had a haemorrhage for twelve years (Mark 5.25-34): 'The Blood
of Christ to save you from bleeding'; or: 'May Christ's Blood heal
your wounds.' Or I quote from a parable that throws light on a quite
different aspect of receiving communion. This will help to ensure
that communion is not seen as always the same rite but in the sense
that Jesus can always meet me in a different form and affect me in
another way. This will remind me that he treats me now exactly as
he treated the sick people and sinners of his own time, and that in
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After a suitable time for silent recollection, the priest recites the
concluding prayer, blesses the congregation, and dismisses them in
peace. The faithful should return to their everyday lives as blessed
people, and become sources of blessing and peace wherever they are.
They should be channels for the peace of Christ entering the world.
They have not only celebrated the Eucharist on their own behalf but
are 'ambassadors' who are to proclaim on Christ's behalf: 'Make
your peace with God!' (2 Cor. 5.20).
At a group Mass I sometimes invite those present to bless each
other by making the sign of the cross on their neighbour's hand and
expressing a particular wish for him or her. The hand with its many
lines is a symbol of our life. It is said that if you can read a person's
hand you can discern the truth about him or her. We sign the cross
on these lines inscribed in the hand to acknowledge the fact that all
lines are enclosed in God's love, that God can transform all roads
into pathways of salvation, that he extends his loving hand over us to
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protect and heal us, and that we are carried and cradled in the hand
of God.
The eucharistic celebration closes as meaningfully as it began.
The Concluding Rite is like a key turned to make sure that the doors
are really shut and that the participants have really prepared for
their departure. The Eucharist concludes with a blessing, so that all
those who have celebrated it can return to the everyday world
bearing a blessing. They are released with the words: 'Go in the
peace of Christ', or 'The Mass is ended, go in peace', or 'Go in peace
to love and serve the Lord.' The peace of God which they
experienced in the Eucharist is to accompany them on their way.
They will not return to their familiar surroundings unprotected.
Those who were present at the mysteries within the church will carry
its effects with them, and in that sense the church door never truly
closes behind them.
The priest kisses the altar again in order to take its power with
him and say a loving farewell to Christ. Now the love of Jesus, which
is celebrated on the altar, should be impressed on his conversation
and behaviour and flow into all his encounters. The congregation
sing a final hymn or leave as the organ plays. Many people remain
seated for a while in silence, so that the mystery of the sacred
celebration can penetrate their bodies and souls, and they can assure
themselves that they will make their way out not as they entered but
as transformed individuals who can now change the ordinary world
around them.
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This is expressed in the graces, or prayers before and after meals, but
also in the readings during meals in which, while we eat God's gifts,
we hear the word of God reminding us that everything comes from
him and is suffused with his love.
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him entering and filling all the rooms in the house of my life, even
those where indignation has lodged or that are littered with the
everyday garbage of life's confusion.
Eucharistic meditation is a liturgy of the heart and a continuation
of what we celebrated together in the Eucharist. It is more than mere
looking, for when we look at the Host we retrain our contemplative
understanding until it becomes a new vision of the reality of our lives.
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the Eucharist will help to bring the healing, saving presence of Jesus
Christ into this malign and calamitous world. Then we shall re-enter
everyday life after each Mass as more upright beings who are able to
deal justly and effectively with the things of this world.
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3
Confirmation: responsibility
and strength
INTRODUCTION
Of all the sacraments, confirmation is probably the one that makes
Christians feel most doubtful and uneasy. Nowadays many priests,
teachers and catechists find it very difficult to motivate young people
to receive the sacrament. Boys and girls ask what it's going to do for
them. When they make their first communion they have some idea of
its implications. But confirmation seems somehow vague and woolly.
Many mothers and fathers of candidates are at a loss to explain to
their children what confirmation is exactly.
For some years now there has been much discussion among the
clergy about the right age for confirmation. Individual priests and
pastoral theologians have different opinions, and practice varies from
one parish to another. People see the sacrament differently. Some
think of confirmation as the culmination or completion of baptism.
They believe it is quite acceptable to confirm children even before
their first communion; indeed, this was the general custom among
Catholics for many years. Others see confirmation as the sacrament
marking the threshold between childhood and adulthood: as the
'sacrament of maturity', of development as a Christian, of
responsibility, of acceptance as a full member of the Church, and
as a kind of commission for entry to the world.
If confirmation is understood as a rite of initiation into adulthood,
then it seems appropriate to administer it to candidates between 14
and 18 years of age. At a recent conference of pastoral workers I
realized how varied the methods of preparation for the sacrament
could be, and in how many different ways confirmation was
interpreted by those immediately concerned with preparing children
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I. CONFIRMATION AS INITIATION
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ritual. In the ancient rite, the sponsor was expected to tread on the
candidate's foot. Clearly, this painful experience was designed to
induce a lively memory of reception of the sacrament and of another
Spirit's presence in you. These old confirmation rites, with their
reminiscences of ancient tribal initiation rites, preserved the
awareness that the path of human growth and development is
painful, and that it hurts to experience the tension between the Holy
Spirit and your own spirit.
The question is how we should arrange confirmation and
preparation for the sacrament today as a form of initiation into
adulthood. It would be pointless simply to restore the tap on the
cheek by the bishop, which was removed after the Second Vatican
Council. People would see it only as an incomprehensible relic of
olden times. Yet these two rites show us that we shouldn't be too
cautious and delicate in dealing with young people. We have to offer
them something that demands an effective response. Young people
want to be challenged. Nearly thirty years of working with them has
made me well aware of this.
On courses with young people we sometimes made it their
responsibility to get up as early as 5.15 in the morning. They did so
willingly. They also found an adventure trip under canvas in the
mountains an interesting and lively way of preparing for confirma-
tion. One commentator said on the radio the other day that young
people nowadays were in sore need of initiation rites, and that in his
opinion the first reefer they smoked or getting stoned fulfilled
precisely that function for many of them. For others it was the first
drive over the speed limit in someone else's, usually a parent's,
vehicle. These were replacement rites, chosen because society offered
no appropriate alternatives. The attraction of occult practices and
ceremonies for this age-group certainly points to the lack of genuine
initiation rites. The Church has to rethink the whole problem of
answering this need appropriately.
Some sociologists talk of the contemporary 'experience society'.
Many young people are just waiting for life to start 'kicking in'. They
want to 'have a real trip', 'get something out of it', 'get a proper hit',
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'live it up', and so on. The Church should seize the opportunity
offered by confirmation to introduce young people to the art of
existence, of living intensely, instead of letting them go on searching
for a succession of new kicks just to convince themselves that they exist
at all. But any such introduction to life would have to provide or
accompany deep experiences of some kind. To restrict it to talks that
tiptoed all too cautiously along the borders of real life would be useless.
There have been several attempts to introduce confirmation
candidates to the art of living. One of these takes the form of group
courses spent away from home, often in camps. But the candidates
have to be challenged, if only by rising early or learning how to
meditate. Young people find it difficult just to sit still and be inside
their own heads. But it's part of growing up to get to know and
accept yourself in silence, and to learn how to be alone. One way of
getting used to this which impresses many young people is a 'day in
the wilderness', during the course. They have to spend a day alone,
relying on their resources, living off the land (from what they find in
nature). They mustn't speak to anyone but walk on their own with
regular stops for rest. During these pauses they are simply there,
communing with their own senses, drinking in what they hear and
feel around them. Strange to say, many young people today have no
real awareness of their own bodies. They need some external stimulus
just to acknowledge that they're actually there. Something like this
solitary walk is needed so that they can teach themselves how to open
their senses to perception of the life round about them in the natural
world, so that they see, hear, smell, taste and feel it.
In our monastery we have found it very effective to invite
confirmation groups to stay here for a few days. After agreeing out of
curiosity to share the rhythm of monastic life, young people are
surprised to find it a considerable challenge. But many of them enjoy
it. They make sure that they get up at 4.40 in the morning to be in
the chapel on time. They learn that the men there are really trying to
live as Christians in a more determined way. This is a challenge to
the candidates' often superficial experience of being a Christian, and
elicits a host of questions about how and why people live like that,
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what the meaning of life is, what really makes you happy, and so
forth. We must remember that places with a spiritual tradition
behind them have the power to vitalize a confirmation group and
start them on a spiritual quest.
Another challenge would be trying to define their own identity.
Who am I? Am I just the son or daughter of these parents? What is
my real identity? W r hat is the unique image of God that I am
intended to be? What do I feel? What do I think when I stop
accepting what other people say? What do I really dream of in life?
What would I like to do with my life? What would I like to get done
in this world if I had the power? It's important, too, to be aware of
the emotions that can well up in us when we're alone. How do I cope
with being on my own? Am I someone only if I'm with other people,
and if others acknowledge and approve of me? Am I capable of
standing up for myself and for my opinions?
It's also possible to introduce physical exercises in self-awareness. I
have often used the following exercise with young people. We stand
with our feet about a foot apart. I say something like: 'I have a
standpoint. I can stand. I can stand up to something. I can stand up
for myself. I can be myself, standing here like this.' The young people
see whether these statements fit the posture they've assumed. Then
we stand to attention, feet close together, with our shoulders drawn
up tight. They realize immediately that you can't be yourself like
that. Then we take up another pose, with feet really wide apart, in a
frozen stagger like cowboys in a western or the toughest kids in the
block. We're clearly trying to be something we're not, trying to prove
who we are. But we're unsteady. We could easily fall over.
Confirmation is connected with the Latin verb jirmare, which
means 'to make firm or fast, strengthen, fortify, support, encourage,
animate, strengthen in resolution, secure, affirm, help to stand firm'.
Confirmation is intended to strengthen young people in their
Christian life and support them through the Holy Spirit, so that
they can stand up for themselves in this world, so that they can find
their own standpoint, and live a Spirit-centred life in an often
unspiritual, uninspired and spiritless world.
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Taking responsibility
Confirmation may be thought of as the sacrament by which a young
person is transformed into an adult. Young people are no longer to
be seen merely as their parents' children. Rebirth through the Holy
Spirit should help them to discover their own identities and to
assume responsibility for themselves and for their own lives. It's usual
nowadays to refuse any responsibility for your life. People shift the
responsibility - and guilt - onto their parents. As for me, they say,
well, I haven't been given sufficient self-confidence, I'm not
intelligent or gifted enough, I haven't had the opportunity, and
anyway I just can't handle life.
Pascal Bruckner, a French philosopher, has identified infantiliza-
tion and victimization as the two main attitudes of our times. Many
people remain in a perpetual childhood, only expecting something
from others, from their mother, from society, or from the Church. So
many people are infantile, and want to be looked after like children,
refusing to take responsibility for others. Only one person counts.
This attitude is usually accompanied by a feeling of victimization.
'Victims' in this sense are people who always ascribe the guilt for
their misfortune to others. My parents are responsible for my
depression and for my inability to take control of my life. Teachers
are responsible for my inability to develop my capacities. The
Church is responsible for my lack of faith. If I go on feeling
victimized, I refuse to assume responsibility for my own life. Because
so many people today won't take responsibility for themselves, they
also refuse any kind of accountability for others in the Church and in
society.
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Father. Yet we can experience the Holy Spirit as the power that
drives us forward, and as the love that fills and fulfils us. How are we
meant to understand the Holy Spirit? The best place to look for an
answer is in the gospels. I shall keep to John and Luke for my
descriptions of the Spirit as seen by the evangelists.
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The Holy Spirit appears not only in love but in forgiveness. When
Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on the disciples on Easter Eve, he says:
'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are
forgiven; if you pronounce them unforgiven, unforgiven they remain'
(John 20.22f). If we manage to forgive someone who has offended
us, that is the work of the Holy Spirit. A deacon from Switzerland
told me that he tries to make this aspect of the Holy Spirit apparent
when preparing young people for confirmation. He invites the
candidates to a service of reconciliation together with their parents,
brothers and sisters, and sponsors. After a brief introduction, he asks
each candidate to stand in a group with family and sponsors. The
members of each group decide on the things for which they seek
forgiveness, and those that have offended them. Then each of them
lays hands on every member of the family, first the father on the
candidate, then the candidate on the father, then the mother on the
candidate and vice versa, and so on, and prays for God's forgiveness.
This is an impressive communal rite. Initially, the deacon said, he
was worried that some candidates and their families would fight shy
of anything so public. But every year he is overjoyed to find that this
practice actually improves family relations, and that the exercise in
reciprocal forgiveness contributes enormously to the general atmos-
phere of the parish.
Another symbol for the Holy Spirit in John is that of the source or
spring. Whoever receives the Spirit, 'as scripture says, "streams of
living water shall flow from within him"' (John 7.38). The Holy
Spirit flows within us like an inexhaustible spring from which we
drink the power God sends us. Whoever drinks from this source will
never be exhausted, for it is never-ending. The Holy Spirit is a source
that can enable us to face our lives fearlessly and undertake tasks
without any initial anxiety about overtaxing our capacities. Whoever
drinks from this spring will enjoy life, work and commitments, and
remain fresh and vitally engaged. Those who draw on the Spirit will
not be controlled by exasperation and disappointment, anger or fear,
by the emotions that beset so many people's minds and hearts
nowadays. Instead they will see things clearly and enjoy offering this
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clarity to the world around them. Those who live a Spirit-centred life
will find living water flowing in and through them. I am horrified
nowadays to discover how often young people are already fixed and
frozen so early in life. They have no vitality, imagination or
creativity. There is so sign of natural effervescence. They can scarcely
even communicate. The Holy Spirit urges life to flow in us when we
seem forever petrified.
John uses another important symbol for the Spirit when he talks
of him as the Supporter and Counsellor (also, the 'Paraclete', or
Helper) who is always at our side. We are not on our own in this
world when our parents neglect or abandon us, or we leave home.
The Holy Spirit accompanies us, defends us, and stands up for us. He
speaks to us too. We are not without good advice when we no longer
agree with our parents' demands and reject them. The Spirit speaks
within us and shows us what is right for us, what suits us, and what
will lead us into real life. Jesus promised his disciples the Counsellor's
support when they had their backs to the wall. Life is a struggle too.
Young people find this out when they go through adolescence. They
are not on their own in this trying period. Someone is there to back
them up. This is a promise that young people can relate to.
Luke takes the image of the Counsellor a stage further. In the Acts of
the Apostles he tells us how the Holy Spirit came like a tempestuous
wind among the scared disciples and gave them the courage to go out
and tell people what God had done for them in Jesus Christ. The
Holy Spirit drives out fear and fills the disciples with confidence.
First and foremost, the Spirit is confidence. He wants to make sure
that young people have the courage to trust in themselves and
develop self-confidence. Those who feel the power of the Spirit
within them don't have to construct a facade of assurance for the
outside world. The cool front assumed by so many young people
obviously conceals great insecurity and a strong sense of inferiority.
The Holy Spirit liberates the disciples from their worries about what
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other people think of them, and whether they will make fun of them
or treat them with contempt. They simply speak as the Spirit
prompts them. Those who live by the Spirit are freed from the
constant need to compare themselves with others. They don't say
what others want them to say, but speak frankly. They say what they
feel and think. They live on the basis of their own awareness and
conscience and do not rely on others for affirmation.
In Luke's account of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is apparent in the
gift of a new ability to communicate. The disciples 'began to speak in
different languages as the Spirit gave them power to proclaim his
message' (Acts 2.4). The Holy Spirit enables young people to find
their own voices. The basic meaning of the Greek word lalein is 'talk,
speak' but in the sense of 'chat, chatter away, prattle as it comes,
babble on naturally'. The disciples don't try to please their audience
by considering each word they say, choosing carefully to make a
good impression. They simply speak from the heart and, because
they do so, their words move their listeners' hearts. The Holy Spirit
can inspire young people not to copy anxiously what everyone else is
saying, as is usual nowadays, but to express their own feelings and
needs confidently. Then they will find that adults understand what
they have to say. Language empowered by the Spirit is relational,
encouraging and supportive. At times I am shocked at the
inarticulacy of some young people. Others, however, can say what
they feel and perceive with exceptional clarity. The language that
comes from the heart is the language of the Holy Spirit. It can touch
other people's hearts too, and move them to action. The Bible calls
the spirit that makes us inarticulate an evil spirit, a demon in fact (cf.
Mark 9.17). Those who have no language for their inner reality, who
can't express their passions and emotions intelligibly, become sick.
They are as if thrown to the ground, convulsed and simply worn out
- as Mark describes a certain young man - by the spirit of deafness
and dumbness (Mark 9.20). Therefore a primary task of preparation
for confirmation should be to give young people a chance to talk
about themselves and their feelings, in one-to-one discussions or in a
group. When a group is nervous, even frightened, it's often difficult
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After the Creed, the bishop stretches his hands towards the
congregation and all the candidates and asks God to send down
the Holy Spirit on them. The Extension of Hands is an ancient
gesture. It means that God's Spirit is being asked to come down to
protect and transform these people. During the eucharistic
transformation the priests extends his hands over bread and wine
and asks the Holy Spirit to descend so that they become the Body
and Blood of Christ. The bishop calls the Spirit down on the young
people so that they may be reborn and transformed as in the
Eucharist, and so that they may be filled with Christ's Spirit, and
with his love and power. The laying on of hands will make them the
bread of heaven as nourishment for others on their way, and the wine
of heaven to gladden people's hearts.
When he ordains a priest the bishop lays his hands on him to
strengthen him in his office. In confirmation, too, this ritual means
that these young people are sent out into the world to shape it
through the power of the Holy Spirit and to bear witness for Christ.
The spreading of the bishop's hands also signifies that God himself
holds out his hand in protection over the young people and will go
with them on their way. But the Stretching out of Hands also
expresses possession. In this gesture God is saying: 'You belong to
me.' If I belong to God that also means that I am free, that I am not
the property of any human being, that no one has power over me,
and that no monarch or ruler, but only God, can decide who I am.
This gives the young people a sense of their unique dignity and
value, for they are not there to satisfy the expectations of their
parents or teachers or friends. They belong to God. They are unique.
They are free. No one has power over them. They are to live in this
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world as free children of God, and make their way with heads erect,
aware of their worth, for they are supported by the Holy Spirit.
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and Romans gave people a signet or seal to show that they belonged
to God and were under his protection. The Jews also used a seal as a
symbol of protection, as a kind of amulet. An ancient Hebrew text
says that those who bear the seal of circumcision need never fear evil
spirits and are as strong as a man girded with a sword. The early
Christians used the cross as a seal or sacred sign. Some of them
tattooed the sign of the cross on their foreheads, to acknowledge that
they belonged to God and that no human being now had power over
them. In confirmation, sealing is a sign that the newly confirmed
boys and girls no longer belong to their parents, but to God, and that
through the seal of the Holy Spirit God will give them the strength to
withstand life's adversities, the worldly things that will so often
confuse them, and the inner obstacles that threaten to cut them off
from life.
The candidates are anointed with chrism, which consists of olive
oil and balsam. Olive oil gives foods additional savour. Oil heals
wounds. The Good Samaritan poured oil and wine into the wounds
of the man who had fallen among thieves. In the ancient world
sportsmen anointed their limbs with oil. This made their bodies
supple and capable of greater achievements. All these meanings play
a part in confirmation. Through it life receives a new savour from the
Holy Spirit, the wounds of life are healed, and young people are
anointed for the contest of life, so that they can issue forth with new
strength and vitality, and vanquish their foes. The oil is mixed with
balsam. Balsam, or balm, consists of the aromatic resin obtained
from various plants and trees. In antiquity the addition of balsam
turned oil into a cosmetic. Only when balsam is added does oil
become 'chrism', a word that reminds us of Christ. Chrism is
intended to symbolize the fragrance of Christ's love, to fill the young
people with Christ's beneficence, and impart some of his loving
radiance to them.
The full effect of these rites will be felt only if they are explained.
It is essential to discuss the main confirmation rites, and to interpret
them so that the young people can enjoy them and experience their
profound significance.
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The Sponsor
The candidates are not alone during the laying on of hands and
anointing by the bishop. The sponsors stand behind them and put
their right hand on their shoulder. A sponsor has a major role in the
rite of confirmation. It is helpful for young people to know there is an
adult there to back them up. The sponsor is a tangible sign of the
Holy Spirit as Supporter. Sponsors support the candidates, help
them to stand up for themselves and face the inevitable risks of life.
Part of a sponsor's task is to place his or her left hand on the boy's or
girl's shoulder. The shoulder is a centre of power. A warrior directs a
spear from the shoulder. To show someone a cold shoulder means
distancing yourself from that person. The sponsor's hand on the
shoulder tells the boy or girl: 'I am glad you exist and are here. You
have power. You are learning to take control of your life. Keep it up!
Carry on!' The reassuring hand also says that a candidate's power,
though it often seems insufficient, comes from the Spirit, who will
strengthen his or her back so that he or she can step forward
confidently with head held high.
In some parishes not only the sponsor, but parents, brothers and
sisters and friends, go up with the candidate. They all lay their hands
on a shoulder, or form a semicircle or circle by placing each hand on
another's shoulder. This shows that the candidates are not alone,
that many people they can count on are behind them and will
accompany them through life. Through confirmation they are
received into the circle of adults and of people who have already
taken the same steps to maturity. They are received into a
community of believers who are ready to share their faith with the
new adults and go with them along the road of faith. They will
experience the strength of the Holy Spirit in these companions,
especially when they feel dejected and deserted.
After the Anointing with Chrism, the bishop gives the young people
the Sign of Peace, saying: 'Peace be with you\ in order to greet and
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Petitions
The Sign of Peace closes the confirmation rite proper. The newly
confirmed boys and girls respond to reception of the sacrament with
their Petitions (Intercessions, or Bidding Prayers). Their creativity
can come into play here. This is an opportunity to show that they
have understood the meaning of confirmation. There are various
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disagreements and longing for unity. In the cup they take the world's
needs and joys to the altar so that the Spirit can transform them.
This simple ritual must be well rehearsed and carried out with care
and reverence, so that the paten(s) with the hosts and the chalice(s)
are taken slowly to the altar on behalf of the parish. This will show
that the Eucharist is the continuation of confirmation, and that the
offerings they bear are transformed into divine gifts to nourish and
strengthen people on their way through life.
In his letters Paul often tells us what living by the Spirit and not by
the flesh means. For him, living by the flesh is behaving as the
standards of this world demand, living under pressure, and having to
be successful and recognized. According to Paul, freedom is the most
important experience of those who live by the Spirit: 'There is
therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the
law of sin and death' (Rom. 8. If.) The Holy Spirit liberates us from
attachment to the old psychological behaviour patterns to which we
keep reverting.
We constantly re-experience the same modes of behaviour and
psychological mechanisms at work in us. We react with hatred and
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anger to those who do us harm. We allow other people to force the rules
of their game on us so that they become our code of behaviour. As soon
as conflicts arise, we feel guilty. Paul says that this type of behaviour is
obeying the law of sin and death. It results in failure to live our lives
effectively. Sin means missing the target. It means death because we are
deprived of real life. But allowing the Spirit to guide us liberates our
inner selves. This was certainly Paul's most intense experience when he
encountered Jesus Christ: 'Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom' (2 Cor. 3.17).
For Paul, the freedom we receive in the Spirit means first and
foremost that we are no longer slaves but free sons and daughters of
God. Tor all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For
you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you
have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it
is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are
children of God' (Rom. 8.14—16). Paul thinks of those who have to
model themselves on others, who are constantly afraid of not doing
what other people want, as slaves. Paul says that Christians are free
people. They can go through life with their heads held high. Their
worth is incontestable. They don't have to pawn their dignity and
value by achievement, or by trying to be liked and loved for
immediately adopting the prevalent opinion. Those who feel really
human only if they satisfy others' expectations are slaves. They are
ruled by another power. Those who live by the Spirit deny others
power over them. The Spirit in us liberates us from domination by
people who want us to have a bad conscience, who make us
dependent on them, who repress us and try to mould us as they
would like us to be.
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The disciples see the power of the Spirit in their ability to proclaim
the word of God fearlessly. Panesia is the Greek word for 'boldness'.
Parresia is freedom to speak, the courage to say aloud what I feel in
my heart. When we speak we often tailor our words to other people's
expectations. We don't say what is in us but what pleases others,
whatever makes us liked and puts us in a good light. But then no
power radiates from our words. Living by the power of the Spirit
would mean saying freely what we feel deep down in our hearts and
what God inspires us to say, without any phoney concern for what
others might think.
For Luke the power of the Spirit is evident in healing and in signs
and wonders. The power of the Spirit is in us. Healing can also take
effect through us. Of course, we are either too self-effacing and
unable to trust in ourselves, or we think we are actually great healers
and helpers and that we can cure others' wounds by our own power.
Living by the power of the Spirit means that we become open to the
Holy Spirit. If I'm talking to someone who asks me for advice, I
mustn't pressure myself, and try to devise especially slick and clever
solutions, or rely on my intellect to find the way out for him or her. I
have to listen to what this person has to say and trust in the Spirit.
He will inspire me and show me how to react and what to say. That
relieves me of any pressure to perform. The result is a number of
miraculous healing acts in the people before me that fill me with
admiration. They leave me with new confidence and hope. But I
didn't do it. It was the power of the Spirit working through me.
The memory of confirmation can encourage us to make room for
the Spirit to operate in us. Even today, more signs and wonders
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for the Spirit to set me in motion, and trusting that God's Spirit will
fill me with his power and inspire me to effective action.
In the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul talks about the many gifts
of the Spirit. Every human being has a particular gift. But one and
the same Spirit gives us these gifts.
People have different gifts, but it is the same Spirit who gives
them. There are different ways of serving God, but it is the
same Lord who is served. God works through different people
in different ways, but it is the same God who achieves his
purposes through them all. Each person is given his or her gift
by the Spirit that he or she may use it for the common good.
One person's gift by the Spirit is to speak with wisdom,
another's to speak with knowledge. The same Spirit gives to
another person faith, to another the ability to heal, to another
the power to do great deeds. The same Spirit gives to another
person the gift of preaching the word of God, to another the
ability to discriminate in spiritual matters, to another speech in
different tongues and to yet another the power to interpret the
tongues. Behind all these gifts is the operation of the same
Spirit, who distributes to each individual person, as he wills.
(1 Cor. 12. 5-11)
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and realized the mystery of existence as a whole. They are aware that
God is the source of their lives, always take him into account, and
relate to him in everything they think and do.
We all have our particular gifts. When I consider my life-history
to date I recognize my personal gift. My wounds can also turn into
gifts. They make me sensitive to others' difficulties. My strong points
can help me to detect my gifts. One person is good at listening,
whereas another takes the initiative, has ideas, is creative or starts
things moving. Another sees things through, is loyal, someone you
can trust. Another faces up to conflicts until they're resolved. Yet
another is able to reconcile opponents and mend divisions between
people.
Many people don't believe they can do anything. They compare
themselves with others and suppose they're never quite up to it, and
have nothing to contribute to the community and to the welfare of
this world. Becoming aware of the meaning of confirmation means
trusting in our gifts, listening to our innermost selves and scrutinizing
them to discover the gifts the Spirit has given us. At Pentecost each
churchgoer in some parishes draws a slip bearing the name of a gift of
the Spirit, and tries to live by its ethos for the rest of the year. When
we put this into practice in my parish, the effects were very
gratifying. Many people were moved to find they had drawn a
particular gift. One man drew the gift of healing. It was a challenge
for him to adopt a more trusting attitude to his wife's depression.
One woman who thought she was pretty incapable of anything
received the gift of leadership. After her initial shock and reluctance
to accept it, she found she could deal more effectively than she
imagined with unresolved conflicts among her relatives. We all agree
to trust in the Holy Spirit who has given each of us the gift he or she
pulls out of the basket. It never fails to put us in touch with
undreamed-of capacities and opportunities. At the year's end we can
all look back gratefully at what the Spirit has produced in us.
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For Paul, living by the Spirit means directing your life as the Spirit
asks: 'If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct its
course. We must not be conceited, inciting one another to rivalry,
jealous of one another' (Gal. 5.25f). Being centred in the Spirit has
consequences for our behaviour. It is a challenge to learn how to act
differently. Paul talks of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. On the one
hand, they are gifts of the Spirit to us; on the other hand, they are
challenges to train ourselves by the Spirit's power to act through
him: 'The Spirit . . . produces in human life fruits such as these:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance
and self-control' (Gal. 5.22f). These fruits are effective criteria for
deciding whether I am living a Spirit-centred life. They show me
where worldly concerns have slipped into my life. Even my religious
life can be distorted by such unspiritual influences as fear, narrow-
mindedness, rigour and self-righteousness. A long process of
transformation is necessary before my whole existence truly radiates
love, kindness, generosity and tolerance.
The Holy Spirit challenges me to work on myself. Healthy self-
discipline is needed before I can feel that I am living my own life
instead of my passions and needs living it for me. Self-control also
means taking responsibility for my own life. Confirmation is
initiation into adulthood. Recalling confirmation will prevent me
from falling back into infantile attitudes and making other people
responsible for my problems. It asks me to live from the source of my
own life instead of feeling that I am the victim of my upbringing,
education or social conditions.
To develop in the Spirit of Jesus as expressed in all these fruits, I
need to meditate daily. I find that the Jesus Prayer is a very helpful
way of training myself in the right attitudes. In the midst of my anger
and annoyance, worries, hardness of heart and overcritical moods, I
try to say the following: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
on me!' Then I often find that my unspiritual feelings are clearing,
and that I can feel something of Jesus's mercy and love in myself.
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Recalling confirmation
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CONCLUSION
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4
Reconciliation
INTRODUCTION
Of all the sacraments, reconciliation, or penance, popularly known
as confession, would seem to be the one avoided by the greatest
number of people in recent years. In the 1950s it was still customary
for devout Catholics (and for Christians belonging to other
denominations with a similar tradition) to go to confession about
every four weeks, but at the very least at Christmas, Easter and All
Saints. Nowadays, however, many people have simply dropped the
practice. They no longer go at all. You scarcely ever see long queues
before confessionals. At best you come across these lines of penitents
in monasteries and convents, during pilgrimages and on certain feast
days. The decline of this sacrament undoubtedly has something to do
with the overemphasis on frequent confession in the past, but also
with a deficient theology and practice of reconciliation.
It would be pretty pointless to regret the disappearance of regular
confession as it was still practised half a century ago. It wasn't
necessarily carried out as Jesus wanted, but as the Church required.
It was a sign of the Church's power over the souls of the faithful. But
people paid for frequent confession with fear and a variety of
wounds.
During some thirty years of work with young people I have often
spent twenty hours at a time talking to a succession of young men
and women coming to confession. They realized how healing and
liberating these discussions were for them. Accordingly, in this
section of the book, I want to describe the sacrament of reconciliation
as a healthy and restorative process offered to us by God. During a
large number of conversations with people seeking help, I have
learnt that guilt and guilt feelings are a really important topic for
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recorded in Mark's gospel are: 'The time has come at last - the
kingdom of God has arrived. You must change your hearts and
minds and believe the good news' (Mark 1.15). Metanoia in the sense
of 'after-thought', means 'thinking differently, rethinking, looking
behind things'. The improvement and alteration of behaviour start
with a new way of thinking. Only if minds and hearts change, can
behaviour be different. Among the New Testament writers, the
author of Luke's gospel uses the term metanoia most frequently. In the
Acts of the Apostles, which he also wrote, he tells us that when
Peter's Pentecostal address deeply moved the hearts of those Jews
who had come from all the nations of the earth to assemble in
Jerusalem, they asked him and the rest of the apostles: ' "Brethren,
what shall we do?" Peter answered: "Repent and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;
and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." ' (Acts 2.7f.). Peter
is not issuing some kind of ascetic summons to do penance, but a
heartfelt invitation to all Israelites to convert, to change their hearts.
This conversion is expressed in the rite of baptism.
Baptism is an acknowledgement, or 'confession', that Jesus Christ
is the Lord and Messiah. In baptism the penitent receives the gift of
forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The past is effaced at the
same time, so that he or she can begin again by the power of the
Holy Spirit.
The baptized person is also filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Then, like Jesus, who also preached and healed by the Spirit's power,
he or she can follow a new road, one that leads to true life. For Jews
and Gentiles, or 'pagans', metanoia is a gift of God. Non-Jews are not
compelled to accept circumcision; all they have to do is to see the
world differently, turn away from their previous state of 'not
knowing what they were doing' (Acts 3.17), and turn to God and
Jesus Christ the Lord. They must abandon false paths, repent, and
follow the new way, which Jesus Christ not only proclaimed but took
before them.
The reconciliation of humans and God will be brought about
through confession or repentance. Reconciliation is a central concept
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A brief history
There were penitential rites in the Christian Church from the start.
Whenever they said the Lord's Prayer, Christians prayed: 'Forgive
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made a total decision for Christ in baptism, but had then rejected
that option by committing a crime. Eventually the more compassion-
ate viewpoint won the day. If a sinner acknowledged his or her guilt
before the bishop, he or she was granted the status of a penitent. But
penitents were excluded from the Eucharist.
The Eastern Church divided penitence into different stages. There
were the weepers, who were wholly shut out from the Eucharist; the
listeners, who attended it only in an ante-room; and the kneelers,
who were allowed to stay in the church during the celebration but,
like those standing, were excluded from the offertory and com-
munion. Penitents were assigned specific penances, which they had
to carry out. They had to prove themselves by leading a Christian
life and, in order to heal the wounds which they had opened by their
sins, were required to fast, pray and give alms.
The Eastern Church stressed the healing effect of penances,
whereas the Western Church laid more emphasis on the aspect of
reparation for the injustice done. When the penitential period had
been completed, the penitents were restored to a standing position in
the Christian community.
This so-called 'Reconciliation' was celebrated in a special rite
which included the prayers of the community, a laying on of hands
by the bishop, and reception of Holy Communion. In some places
the laying on of hands was supplemented by anointing. The prayers
stressed reconciliation with the Church. In the West the liturgy of
reconciliation was associated primarily with Lent. The penitential
period began on Ash Wednesday and the reconciliation with the
Church was celebrated on Holy Thursday. Initially these rites were
intended only for public sinners, but were gradually extended to all
Christians. The sign of the cross made with ashes on the foreheads of
the faithful on Ash Wednesday expressed the fact that all Christians
were sinners, and in need of penitence in order to re-experience the
mystery of the eucharistic community on Holy Thursday.
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Thus Benedict of Nursia advised his monks: 'If any evil thoughts
enter your heart, crush them directly on Christ by revealing them to
your spiritual father' (Rule of St Benedict, 4).
As monastic communities received an increasing number of priests
into their ranks, the directional form of confession became a
sacrament. But this involved a levelling of distinctions and a neglect
of the actual intention of monastic spiritual direction. Because
sacramental confession was concerned with the remission of sins, the
varied matters disclosed in the course of spiritual direction now had
to be presented as sins. This was the origin of'devotional' confession,
in which any inconvenient lack of current sin was redressed by
'elevating' all possible imperfections to the status of sins, or by
absolving all over again sins already forgiven a long time before.
d) Is confession necessary?
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b) Guilt as an opportunity
Jung tells us that people are guilty when they refuse to face their own
truth. But Jung also recognizes an almost necessary form of guilt,
which is an ineluctable human experience:
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c) Evil
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The question is how to deal with our guilt. We have to beware of two
tendencies: to accuse and to excuse. When we accuse ourselves, we tear
ourselves apart with guilt feelings and use them to punish ourselves. We
dramatize our guilt. Then we have failed to distance ourselves
adequately from our own guilt. We do not really deal with it but let it
rule us and drag us down. This self-devaluation is often unrealistic, and
ignores things as they really are. That makes it an obstacle to genuine
self-criticism and responsibility. Then people condemn themselves
totally while avoiding any real analysis of the certain facts. But often
self-accusation is no more than pride in reverse. Essentially it means
that people want to be better than others and elevate themselves above
the mass. Then, all of a sudden, they hear the forbidding voice of their
own superego. This, according to psychoanalytical psychology,
represents social morality or conscience and our own ideal aspirations
in the psyche (coasisting of the three functional divisions of id, ego and
superego). Such people often describe themselves as the worst sinners
on earth. They must be the worst because they can't be the best.
Refusing to recognize that they are just average human beings, they
are determined to outdo others at any cost, if not in being and doing
good, then at least in being and doing evil. They desperately need
humility: the courage to realize and stand up for their humanity.
The other danger is that of excusing ourselves. This is also a way
of evading guilt. I search for a thousand reasons why I am not guilty
and try to justify myself in every possible way. But the more I try, the
greater doubt I feel. The only recourse I have is to go on looking for
new grounds for self-justification. My refusal to face my guilt makes
me all bustle and push. I can't stand being quiet and peaceful, for
then my feelings of guilt would seize me and I would realize that all
my attempts at self-justification are pointless.
e) Liberating talk
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Greeting
The sacrament begins with a brief greeting. The priest and the
penitent make the sign of the cross and thus place themselves within
God's merciful love, which shone forth most visibly on the cross.
Then the priest can say a short prayer. Depending on the country or
region, the official rite prescribes something like: 'May God who
illuminates our hearts make you truly aware of your sins and of his
mercy.' I prefer to use my own words, and to say something like the
following:
Merciful and loving Lord, N. has come here to hold out his
(her) life to you with all its ups and downs. Make it possible for
him (her) to see the obstacles on his (her) way to you and to
real life. Send him (her) your Holy Spirit and free him (her)
from everything that weighs him (her) down. May he (she)
have faith in your forgiveness and may your Holy Spirit enable
him (her) to forgive him(her)self, so that he (she) can continue
on his (her) way strengthened and liberated by this sacrament.
I ask this through Christ our Lord.
The rite then calls for the priest to read a passage from the Bible.
The following are prescribed or recommended texts: the Letter to the
Romans (Rom. 3.22-6; 5.6-11; 6.2-13; 12.If.; 9.19; 13.8-14); the
first Letter of John (1 John 1.5-10; 3.1 -24; 4.16-21); and the gospels,
for instance Matthew (Matt. 3.1-12; Matt. 4.12-7; Matt. 9.9-13), or
Luke (Luke 15.1-10; Luke 15.11-32; Luke 17.1-4; Luke 18.9-14).
Personally, I find a text from the first Letter of John most effective:
This is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim
to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we
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This passage invites the penitents to look more searchingly into their
darkness. God's light will help them to show God their truth. The
words of the Bible have their own power and create an atmosphere in
which we find it easier to admit our guilt and express it openly.
Self-examination
Many people don't know what they ought to confess. They are
dissatisfied with the usual examination of conscience which lays out
various categories for a thorough self-examination. Some people go
through the commandments one after the other and accuse
themselves of disobeying this or that injunction. Many people,
however, find that superficial and far too schematic. A proven
method is to confess from three viewpoints: my relationship to God,
my relationship to myself, and my relationship to my neighbour. The
penitent can take them one by one and say what each means to him
or her, in what respects he is dissatisfied with himself or herself, and
where he or she feels guilty.
Many people say they haven't much to confess. Their primary
complaint is there is nothing to repent of, to feel sorry about. But it's
not only a matter of admitting guilt. It's quite an achievement in
itself to consider our lives and express what we feel in words. Of
course there are areas where we aren't so pleased with ourselves. And
of course it's often difficult to decide precisely whether a particular
thing is sin or merely weakness, inattentiveness, or an everyday error.
That's not very important. The main thing is to consider our lives
and to face at least what is worrying us. If someone describes a
disagreement with his or her father or mother, or with the head of
department or a colleague, all that needs to be said is how it affects
him or her, how he or she feels about it, how he or she has behaved as
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Forgiveness
After the penitent's confession and discussion with the priest, the
priest absolves him or her. Absolution means dissolving, releasing,
acquittal. In Jesus's name, the priest releases penitents from their
guilt, and assures them that God has forgiven them. The rite
provides for the laying on of hands at this point. When I as a priest
lay my hands on penitents' heads, they can experience physically
their unconditional acceptance by God and his inclusion of their
guilt in his love. The prescribed absolution is approximately as
follows:
Merciful and loving God, thank you for all you have given N.
and for everything you have done in him (her). Forgive him
(her) anything of which he (she) was guilty, and any injury he
(she) may have done to himself (herself) or to others. Fill him
(her) with your Holy Spirit so as to transform everything in
him (her) and bring him (her) into contact with the inner
source of your love. May your forgiving love penetrate to the
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The rite of absolution helps penitents fully to accept the truth that
God has forgiven them. Jung stresses the fact that people in situations
in which they are really guilty not only feel excluded from the human
community, but inwardly torn, and in a condition from which they
can't free themselves by their own power. The rite of absolution, Jung
says, can surmount the obstacles in our soul which make it difficult for
us to believe in God's forgiving love. Our unconscious contains blocks
which prevent us from believing in forgiveness, and archaic ideas that
all guilt must be paid for. The rite is necessary in order to dissolve these
archaic images in our unconscious. It tells not only our intellect or
feelings but the depths of our unconscious that we are unconditionally
accepted by God, and that we no longer have to blame ourselves for
our guilt. The rite is supra-personal. It amounts to more than a
personal request by the priest. In the rite the priest shares in the healing
power of the ultimate Source. This is the conviction of all religions, and
similarly of the psychologist and thinker Jung: 'Quite apart from its
purely personal significance, the rite does justice to the collective and
numinous aspect of the occasion' (Briefe [Letters], Vol. II, p. 440).
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sense how these individuals still affect them, and know how much
effort it costs to remain unreconciled with them.
I can be reconciled if I simply put to one side all the wounds and
pains I have suffered, together with my angry feelings about the
people who have injured me. First of all, I have to abandon my
anger, and distance myself from these individuals as I do so. Only
when I have put a healthy space between us will I be free from the
destructive forces that emanate from them. I let them be, just as they
are, but I refuse to let them have any power over me. Forgiving them
doesn't mean embracing them warmly.
The first step towards reconciliation with other people is to let
them be, to stop judging or condemning them. I just let them exist as
they are. What they've done is their problem. They've wounded me,
but I refuse this injury house-room. I transform my rage about this
hurt into the satisfaction of living my own life instead of being
determined by these people.
The second step is to re-establish a relationship with them. But
this is not always possible. It always depends on the other persons
being ready to clear things up by talking about them. If they refuse
to take this step, I can still be reconciled by no longer complaining
about them and by putting them out of my mind for the present. I
just leave them alone and wait. I try to be reconciled inwardly with
myself and with the past. As soon as they make it possible, I shall be
ready to approach them, or to react positively to any favourable
moves they make.
If people live together in a community without resolving their
quarrels, their whole society can collapse. The members of a group
can only get along with each other if there is some readiness to repair
the situation, and if there are repeated attempts at reconciliation. We
find ourselves drawn towards mutual forgiveness in the interwoven
lives of a family or a monastic community or even an office or
factory. The evangelist Matthew sensed this in the communities of
his day. Consequently, in chapter 18 of his gospel he summarized the
part of Jesus's message that focused on forgiveness as a basic rule for
living in community with others. When Peter asks how often another
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person can wrong him and he must forgive him or her: 'Would seven
times be enough?', Jesus replies: 'No, not seven times, but seventy
times seven!' Seventy times seven really means again and again,
without any limit. But Matthew doesn't see forgiveness as just
brushing discord under the carpet. If someone sins and disturbs life
in the community, one of its members has to approach the offender
and talk to him or her about it. The aim of the discussion is to win
the offending individual over. Of course, he or she has to be prepared
to listen to what is said to him or her. A conflict can be cleared up
and reconciliation can occur if we listen to each other and talk things
over. But if the offender doesn't listen, then - says Matthew - two or
three people should talk to him or her. If that produces no result, the
whole community should try to win this recalcitrant person over (cf.
Matt. 18.15-17). This doesn't mean setting up a court but creating a
situation in which people listen to what everyone has to say, in order
to discover the cause of dissension. The community must always be
ready to forgive, but the individual has to be prepared to listen, to
realize what his or her behaviour does to others. If people listen to
each other, they will find a way to resolve the conflict, or at least to
deal with each other fairly. Then the disagreement will no longer be
an excuse for division. Reconciliation removes the divisive power of
insoluble conflicts.
The sacrament of reconciliation must not be used as a way of
repressing antagonism just at the level of a private discussion with a
priest. Instead it requires us to look for ways of solving conflicts
together. It sends us home aware of our duty to be reconciled with
people whom we have harmed or who have done us harm.
Conversion
Jesus's first words in Mark's gospel are: 'The time has come at last -
the kingdom of God has arrived. You must change your hearts and
minds and believe the good news' (Mark 1.15). Conversion, a
change of heart, or repentance, is not only an aspect of confession but
something essential to our lives as a whole. It is necessary because the
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Jesus was especially concerned for sinners. He could see they were
prepared to change. When he looked at the Pharisees he recognized
the danger of devout people feeling so self-satisfied that they thought
there was no need to repent. There are people who have grown
rigidly devout like that and never open themselves to God's merciful
love. Jesus never condemned sinners or threatened them with hell-
fire. Instead he told them that their failures were opportunities to
change and begin all over again, and that they could understand
God's merciful love more profoundly than self-righteous people.
The God and Father of Jesus Christ doesn't impose arbitrary rules
and laws on us. He gave us commandments to help us to live
effectively. Jesus reinterpreted God's will and the meaning of these
commandments: 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the
Sabbath' (Mark 2.27). He reminded us that commandments are
intended to help people to live in accordance with their dignity and
value, and to deal with each other justly.
But God never lets us lie fallow. We can't say: 'We've done
everything we should do. Now God will reward us.' Jesus makes us
aware that we have to ask what the will of God is again and again, in
every situation we find ourselves in. And God always wants us to be
alive, to be healthy and whole, and to exist in accordance with our
true nature. The God preached by Jesus is the guarantor of our
development as authentic human beings. We shall never find the
way to our true selves by our own power. God enables us to become
truly human.
CONCLUSION
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meet the Jesus Christ who forgave sinners their guilt. We also meet
the God of Jesus Christ, who frees us from our guilt and our guilt
feelings, and allows us to experience his merciful love in this form.
As for my personal experience, I can't say that I exactly enjoy
going to confession. But I know that it's good for me. From time to
time, I need the opportunity to pause for a while, look at my life,
assess it, and ask: 'Is the way I live the right way?' I have to struggle
to overcome powerful inhibitions when I ask another monk if he will
hear my confession. But, after confessing, I realize that it was a good
thing to do. Of course I'm not going to change my skin. And I have
to go on living with my problems and everyday faults. But confessing
is a stimulus to begin again and live more thoughtfully and
responsibly. Sometimes confessing makes me aware of tendencies
which I'm liable to. Facing them makes me more wary of them, and
being forgiven assures me that now I don't have to go on delving into
the past. It's buried and I can leave it like that.
During a recent Easter course, the group leaders chose the theme
'Guilt and Guilt Feelings.' I thought it was quite brave of them to
tackle this subject with young people. But the actual sessions showed
how very important this topic is for the young. They need some
occasion when they can speak quite openly about their guilty
feelings. Moreover, they long to be rid of them and to be absolved of
their guilt. The sacrament of reconciliation is not the only place
where the subjects of guilt, guilt feelings and forgiveness come up and
can be dealt with. But it is certainly a major chance to experience
therapeutic healing for many people not merely distraught but quite
torn apart by all sorts of scruples. It is especially important for those
who continually reproach themselves for their failures. In reconcilia-
tion Jesus gave us a sacrament in which we can know that we are
loved unconditionally.
When I gave a talk on the subject 'Everyone has an Angel', a ten-
year-old girl asked me: 'Do you really think that my angel will never
leave me?' When I said Yes, she asked: 'Even if I'm naughty?' I
replied: 'Yes, your angel is very, very patient.' But she wouldn't let it
go: 'All right, but what if I'm naughty over and over again?' So I
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said: 'I'm absolutely sure that your angel will never leave you, but
stay with you always. Even if you can't stand yourself, your angel
can take it, that's certain.' She was quite satisfied and comforted to
learn this. It was essential for someone to tell her that she would
never be abandoned and that the angel who looked after her would
stick it out.
The sacrament of reconciliation is our chance to experience the
truth that the God of all-forgiving love never abandons us, that his
forgiveness can deal with all our guilt, and that God accepts us
without imposing any condition on us. As a confessor, I always find it
miraculous to see people oppressed by guilt straighten up, as it were,
and go home liberated. They have experienced what Jesus really
intended when he gave us a sacrament in which we can feel we are
truly reconciled.
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5
Marriage
The bride and groom are the actual ministers of marriage. They
administer the sacrament to each other. They marry each other.
This fact about the ministry of marriage is central to any
discussion of its mystery. I shall approach it by way of, first, a brief
look at the language of marriage, and, second, an examination of the
theology of the sacrament.
The marriage language used by us, our ancestors, the Church, the
State and the law, then and now, expresses various aspects of the
history of marriage, our experience of it, and the wisdom distilled
from this recorded and practical knowledge. The etymologies and
associations of these words betray the basic legal and formal contexts
of marriage over thousands of years.
There are various terms for and associated with marriage, some'of
which are roughly equivalent, such as 'marriage' and 'matrimony',
whereas others, such as 'betrothal', 'espousals', and 'nuptials',
usually emphasize certain stages or aspects of it. Although the last
three have gone out of general use they can be useful for purposes of
exact definition.
Other terms, such as 'wedlock' (from the Old English wedlac, a
pledge), 'marital alliance', 'matrimonial union', and even 'matri-
mony', are dated in other ways; they are generally considered to be
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Wedding
A church wedding is a liturgical act of marriage, but also a social
occasion for festivity and congratulation. Since times immemorial
people have recognized it as a time for rejoicing when two people are
so much in love that they decide to spend the rest of their lives
together. A wedding can have a magical effect on other people too,
and brighten their daily lives with a reminder of the promise for the
future that comes from God's love. When we celebrate a wedding we
express the fact that the married couple's lives, but also our own, are
fulfilled by the mystery of divine love. The future partners and their
parents certainly feel this when they invite other people to share the
celebration. If two people are reluctant to celebrate their partnership
by getting married, we might feel that this betrays a certain
inadequacy in their joint venture. They can't trust one another, so it
seems, to contract a marriage, celebrate it, and invite others to
witness and share their marriage feast. How stale their love must
have become if they never feel the need to express it in the form we
know as a wedding.
Betrothal
'Betrothal' originally meant the same as 'engagement', the promise
to marry which precedes the public celebration. In many countries
in centuries past this was the actual marriage, which was merely
blessed in church or at the church door. But marriage itself is a
betrothal, and an engagement is also made, or ratified, in the
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Saying Yes
Some people still talk of bride and groom 'saying Yes' to each other,
although not so long ago it referred only to the future bride accepting
a proposal from her suitor. This once-popular expression has a deep
significance, for if you say Yes to someone in respect of something so
important, you accept him or her whole and entire. But you can do
that only if you can say Yes to yourself, if you can accept yourself
unconditionally. When two people accept each other as they are, and
when they say Yes to everything in and about the other person, they
create a space where each of them can increasingly conform to God's
intended image of him or her. Another person's acceptance of me is
like a wholly beneficial clamp or weld holding together everything in
me that is various and contrary. It makes it possible for me to
develop as the person I am intended to be. The mutual Yes also
makes the married couple an inspiration for other people, who feel
affirmed and accepted in the presence of those who affirm and accept
each other unconditionally. A wedding is a feast of affirmation and
joy because God accepts us all unconditionally, and therefore we can
accept each other.
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Marriage customs
Language is not the only thing that offers clues to the mystery of
marriage. There are countless marriage customs among all the tribes
and nations of the world, some of them reaching back into antiquity.
Many marriage customs are associated with the theme of the bride's
release from her parents' control and her entry into a new way of life.
One such practice is to present the newly married couple with bread
and salt, to make sure that they are equipped for their journey
together. In some areas of Europe, bride and groom have to saw
through a log or cut down a tree to show that old bonds have been
dissolved and a new stage of life is beginning. In Israel the
bridegroom leads his bride in a festive midnight procession from her
house and into his own, where the marriage is celebrated. This
expresses the truth that the marriage will succeed only if the bride
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b) The sacrament
Meeting Christ
Language and usage give us some important clues to the nature of
marriage. But the Church also celebrates marriage as a sacrament.
'Sacrament' means 'religious mystery, consecration, commitment'.
The Latin verb sacrare means 'to consecrate, dedicate to God,
sanctify, make holy, make inviolable and unbreakable, strengthen
and seal'. The Church sees marriage as a sacrament because it wants
to show that this occasion when two people say Yes to each other has
something to do with God. When the Church blesses this marriage, it
declares it to be holy and whole, for it has placed it under God's
blessing. This secures the couple's hope and trust that their marriage
bond will remain inviolable and unbreakable. This divine blessing
also declares that in their mutual celebration of the sacrament this
man and this woman receive a new vitality. Under God's blessing
they will embark on the experience of mutual openness, under-
standing and love.
From a theological viewpoint, a 'sacrament' is something which
Jesus brought about two thousand years ago, which is enacted in our
present-day world, and which flows into human activities and
achievements now. With regard to marriage, it means that the love
which Jesus showed us to the point of death and beyond flows into
and transforms the love of this man and this woman. Marriage as a
sacrament means that it sanctifies and makes whole and completes
the love between two people, which is always fragile and endangered
by possessive claims, projections and misunderstanding. It also
reminds us that the Church sees marriage as one of the main places
where we meet Christ. The mutual love of husband and wife enables
them to sense what Christ's love actually means for them. Through
married love they constantly grow into the mystery of Christ's love,
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Touch
Medieval theology took a different view of a sacrament, seeing it as the
visible sign of something invisible. The outward sign in many
sacraments is an imposition of hands or anointing associated with
effective words. Sacraments always use touch. The Fathers of the
Church say that in a sacrament we are touched by the hand of the
historical Jesus as he conveys his love to us. In marriage God's love is
transmitted in the tender touch of the married couple, culminating in
sexual union. The sacrament confirms the dignity and value of married
love. Sacramental theology sees sexuality in a much more positive light
than Catholic moral theology, which still tends to be hostile to the
body. Husband and wife can experience God most intensely in physical
love. This sacramental concept of sexual love accords with the insights
of present-day psychology. Marriage counsellors with a background in
Jungian psychology remind us of the transcendent potential of sex, for
the sexual act always points beyond itself to the mystery of
transcendence, to the mystery of God's infinite, inexhaustible love.
The Jewish philosopher Walter Schubart stresses the close connection
between God's Spirit, which unites opposites, and married love, where
some part of the Oneness of God enters our world: 'The divine Oneness
becomes visible in this twofold human experience ... Every act of love
is an approach to perfection, a prelude to the re-blending of God and
the world ... When two lovers discover each other, the wound of
isolation closes at that point in the universe' (Walter Schubart, Religion
und Eros [Religion and Eros], 1941, pp. 83ff).
Love
If the invisible is conveyed through the visible, this also means that
the visible is not all there is. It's only a hint and taste of the invisible,
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c) Biblical references
Leaving parents
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keeps comparing his wife with his mother. His wife can never be
herself. She is always seen as his mother's rival. Then she becomes a
substitute mother, and not a partner. A wife, of course, can behave in
much the same way. If she hasn't said goodbye to her father, as it
were, she is not ready to be her husband's partner. Or if she lives in
too great a state of symbiosis with her mother, the man doesn't marry
his wife, but his wife and her mother. Marriage presupposes an end
to dependence on parents and their patterns of life.
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Indissolubility
Because husband and wife become one flesh in sexual union, marriage
is indissoluble: 'What therefore God has joined together, let not man
put asunder' (Matt. 19.6). Jesus's statement scares many people
contemplating marriage nowadays. The indissolubility of marriage
seems frighteningly unrelenting. People entering into marriage have
to promise their partners to stay loyal to them forever. Yet at the
same time they know they can't guarantee this perpetual loyalty.
They're afraid that they might develop differently, and, indeed, grow
away from each other, or that hitherto unsuspected psychological
problems will come to the surface and make it impossible for them to
stay together. For Jesus, the indissolubility of marriage corresponds to
God's original will and therefore to the nature of the marital
relationship between husband and wife. But at the same time Jesus is
aware that people aren't always able to fulfil this ideal. He takes
exceptions into account, as in the 'unfaithfulness' clause in Matthew
19.9. If you bind yourself to another person, you shouldn't make a
mental reservation, saying: Yes, all right, but we'll part as soon as
there are difficulties. At the same time, people who want to get
married have to realize that they can't guarantee that they will
remain faithful. They can make this binding commitment only if they
trust that God will bless this marriage and enable the two partners to
remain loyal to each other. Marriage doesn't derive from human
intentions alone but, as a sacrament, calls on the grace of God, who
alone makes a lasting union possible.
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have to take part in orgiastic feasts to keep love alive. If you are in
touch with God's love inside you, its transforming power will work its
enchantment on you ever and again, making so many moments and
occasions as captivating as your wedding day.'
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nourishes and cares for his or her body, so the husband should nourish
and care for his wife. This is not a reference to any kind of claim by a
husband to own his wife, or to marital duties which a partner has to
fulfil, but to a respectful and attentive treatment of one by the other.
Both Greek words in the original mean to nourish, foster, cherish and
care for. The husband must not repress and rule his wife but cherish
and support her, so that she recognizes her divine dignity and value,
advances through life with head erect, and becomes herself wholly
and entirely. He must care for her so that she feels comfortable as the
person she is. But this demands a great deal of attentiveness and
sensitivity to the other person. We are told that the wife should
honour her husband. The Greek word can even mean 'fear'. What is
intended is 'respect', in the sense of realizing that the other person is a
mystery. Precisely because husband and wife come to know each
other better in marriage, they have to respect and heed each other, or
their love will grow stale. It is continually renewed by a sense of the
other person's special mystery, and by a realization that some part of
God's infinite mystery shines out from him or her. Paul means that a
wife (or husband) should respect the other partner, and thus sense in
him (or her) something of the mystery of Jesus Christ, who devoted
himself utterly to his Church.
If we forget the time-bound associations of Paul's' comparison of
love between Christ and the Church to marriage, we shall see that it
says something vital about the mystery of married love. The partners
not only meet in an experience of mutual love, but are in touch with
the mystery of Christ's love. Marriage is an initiation into the mystery
of Jesus Christ's love as shown in his total devotion on the cross.
Through their everyday love married people can experience Christ
and feel his love just as they do in worship. Therefore marriage is a
sacrament of daily life. It is enacted not only in the ceremony before
the altar but in the everyday exchange of loyalty and love.
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such people are making use of the Church as a kind of service access
point. They just want to give their wedding a touch of class. But I am
not all that pessimistic about this. I think in most cases it's a healthy
sign that people believe living together isn't all that simple, and it's a
good thing to begin married life with God's blessing. And at the very
least it means that not a few people are aware that no secular
institution can provide so impressive a celebration as the Church.
Even when people make fun of outdated church rituals, they are
pleased to take advantage of them for their own weddings.
Celebrating a festive occasion is an expression of an important
desire for your life together to be right and successful. If you haven't
enough confidence to do that, perhaps your relationship is lacking in
other respects too, and your joint venture will be tedious and
uninspired. We must remember, too, that all religions have special
ceremonies for the changeover to a married state. Rites of transition
are intended to assuage our fear of a new way of life and to release
the energy we need to live through this new stage in our existence.
The rite of marriage in church is very simple. There are only a few
steps, which may be supplemented with a Eucharist (making it a
nuptial Mass) and certain other touches. The actual rite begins when
the celebrant greets the couple with a brief address or homily and
may put formal questions to them about their willingness to obey the
obligations of marriage and their freedom to marry. These are
suggested in the official service, but the prescribed questions about
the pair's actual will and desire to conclude this marriage can make
it sound like a legal interrogation. This will have been discussed
already with the parish priest when preparing for the wedding. I
always advise the couple to decide in advance what they would like
to say in front of everyone about their future life: what's important to
them about getting married, say, and why they've chosen a church
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After the consent, the priest blesses the rings (or ring, since practice is
not consistent in the English-speaking world). A circle of precious
metal is an ancient symbol. Its roundness signifies the unity of
humankind. It polishes to smoothness whatever is rough and
recalcitrant. Because it leads back into itself, a ring is a symbol of
oneness and perfection. Since it is unending, it also stands for
eternity. Wedding-rings symbolize the hope that both partners will
achieve the unity that offers perfection and that their love will extend
into eternity. The ring is also a sign of protection against evil forces.
It is intended to defend the couple from threats to their love. Rings
are also signs of commitment, faithfulness and membership of a
community.
The rings are blessed. Nowadays, of course, very few people know
anything about the profound symbolism of wedding-rings, so the
priest should say something about this before or after the blessing.
God's love and fidelity should flow into the rings so that the couple
see them as signs that they belong to each other for the future, that
love will smooth away any imperfection in them, that they wish to be
loyal to each other, that they commit themselves to each other, and
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that their love should be protected from all threats. Their rings also
show the world that they love each other and belong together.
When the priest has blessed the rings (or ring), the bridegroom takes
the bride's ring and promises to take her as his wife in the sight of
God, to be loyal to her, and to love, care for and honour her always.
He places the ring on the appropriate finger of the bride's left hand,
saying a modern version of the time-honoured words: 'With this ring
I you wed, with my body I you worship, and with all my worldly
goods I you endow. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen.' The revised words are basically these : 'In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, take
and wear this ring as a pledge of our love and fidelity.' If she is to
give a ring, the bride then takes it, and does and says the same. The
reference to the Trinity is most fitting, for the Trinity is love in itself,
and just as love flows between the three Persons in a perpetual
circuit, so the ring symbolizes love flowing endlessly to and
fro between bride and groom, so that no one can tell the difference
between divine and human love.
The priest now invites bride and groom to take each other by the
right hand, tells them of God's faithfulness to them, lays his stole
about their joined hands, confirms the union they have celebrated,
and reminds everyone of Jesus's words: 'That which God has joined
together let no man divide.' Since the fourth century AD the stole has
been a sign of office worn in different ways by deacons, priests and
bishops. When the priest puts his stole around the couple's hands he
confirms their commitment in the name of the Church. They hold
hands to indicate that they have entered into a legal engagement to
each other but also to indicate openness, devotion and forgiveness.
They also show that they are committing themselves into each
other's hands so that they can protect each other, follow a common
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road, and be united physically. In the past, the stole was also thought
of as symbolizing the robe of immortality. With it the celebrant now
expresses his hope that the love between husband and wife is
undying, and will flow beyond death into eternal life. The priest
wraps the bridal couple in the unending and indestructible love of
God. He also lays his hand on them to stand for God protecting and
blessing them with his own loving hand, so that they are both held
there and whatever they undertake will be touched and blessed by
God.
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each other, one of them lights the wedding candle, which means he
or she wants to end the dissension. Even if one of them is too hurt or
upset to say anything, the lighting of the candle will show that they
both trust in their mutual love and want light to shine again in the
darkness.
Then I light the bridal candle at the Paschal Candle. It shares the
power of the light of Easter, which has vanquished all the darkeness
and coldness of death. I bless the burning candle with these words:
The intercessions
After this blessing a brief silence is called for, so that everyone can
sense the mystery of married love. This is also a good point to ask
friends or other musicians to play a suitable piece or to sing a song
expressing their wishes for the couple. Then the guests can let all
their goodwill and prayers flow into the music. The rite also
prescribes a few intercessions, or bidding prayers. Now friends of the
couple can take an active part in the celebration. Sometimes, before
the wedding the couple ask friends to compose a petition and to
recite or read it out. They could also bring along a symbol that
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illustrates the point of the prayer. This often inspires great creativity.
Friends bring their symbol to the altar, explain its intention, and end
with a wish for the bride and groom. The congregation can follow
each presentation with a 'Lord, grant our prayer.' Sometimes I ask
the guests to light small candles or night lights from the bridal candle
and to say what they wish at the same time: 'I light this candle to
wish N. and N. ...' Or: 'I light this candle for all married people who
...'. Lighting a candle is a wonderful symbol of prayer and a prayer
in itself. As long as it burns a prayer is rising to heaven. If the
petitioners place their candles on the altar, they will burn
throughout the rest of the service and show that the whole
congregation wish to enclose the couple in their prayers.
The reading
When preparing for the wedding the priest should ask the couple
which readings they would prefer. Some already have very firm ideas
about this and have chosen texts they have found inspiring or that
speak to actual experiences they have had together. The following are
favourite readings: Genesis 1.26-8 (God made us male and female);
Genesis 2.18-24 (inner union between husband and wife); Tobit 8.4—8
(the nature of mutual love); Ruth 1.15-17 (following the same path);
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The gospel
The liturgy proposes the following as gospel readings: Matthew 5.1-
12 (the Beatitudes); Matthew 19.3-6 or John 1.1-12 or John 15.9-
17. Couples who want to emphasize the importance of security in
marriage might choose the house on a rock passage in Matthew
7.24-7. Others might choose an account of healing, such as Luke
13.10-17, if they want to stress the curative and cooperative aspects
of their union. Another suitable image in the same line would be the
healing of the leper in Mark 1.40—45, which stands for unconditional
acceptance of one by the other, and even of characteristics which the
possessor can't accept. Their mutual love heals the other's difficulty.
The light of love enables both to feel clean and entirely accepted.
The healing of the man who was deaf and unable to speak
intelligibly (Mark 7.31-7) describes the possibilities of a marriage
when one partner enables the other to hear his or her desires
properly in every word, paying attention even to the most subtle
notes, so that the longing for love and cooperation can be sensed even
in the most contentious statements. The passage also brings home the
importance of one partner helping the other to speak effectively, so
that every word helps to secure the relationship, and his or her own
truth is conveyed as a message of love.
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The homily
After the gospel the priest expounds the texts. A personal address is
possible here only if he has discussed it with the couple beforehand,
and knows something about their convictions and what they expect
from marriage. The homily should not enunciate general principles
of married life. It should be a personal address to the couple, but also
one in which the guests feel included. The marriage rite needs both
prescribed ritual and the personal element of words that address the
actual situation of this man and this woman. People will always
know if the priest is merely using a familiar homily for all such
occasions, or is truly addressing these particular people with their
unique life-histories and wishes.
The offertory
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the Source of divine love, so that their human love can flow all the
more strongly.
A meal together
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Jesus closes the Sermon on the Mount with these words: 'Everyone
then who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is
like a sensible man who builds his house on the rock' (Matt. 7.24).
Jesus's words are a solid foundation on which to build the house of
marriage. Many people, however, find mere references to what Jesus
said rather abstract and difficult to apply to real life. I shall add
another quotation from the Sermon on the Mount that helps to
provide a firm basis for a life together: 'Judge not, that you be not
judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged,
and the measure you give will be the measure you get' (Matt. 7.If.).
Constant criticism is a continual threat to reciprocal love. If my
partner isn't good-humoured, I immediately interpret this as a lack
of love. I reproach him or her for ruining my good mood: 'I was so
looking forward to this evening. And then you go and make a face
like that. You've spoiled everything!' Criticism turns to judgement. I
establish a norm which has to be obeyed and won't allow the other
person to be as he or she is. I won't even let him or her feel down or
off-colour from time to time. As a result, my partner feels devalued
and begins to feel it's impossible to live up to the critical partner's
ideals. The reproaches and judgements evoke either justifications or
counter-accusations. Then I am constantly under the pressure of
having to justify myself and explain why exactly I feel as I do, or I
try to defend myself by attacking the other person and criticizing his
or her behaviour. If he's a real husband he should appreciate my
needs. If she's a real wife she should make sure I feel all right. These
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Building on weaknesses
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But happiness isn't something you can find and impose on the way
you live once and for all. It consists of a series of fortunate happy
moments and occasions that spur you ahead through the rest of this
life to the next.
Another illusion is that the other person has to be close to us all
the time in marriage. But life together can succeed only if we get the
relation between closeness and distance right. One problem here is
that the ways in which partners want to be close and distant are
often very diverse, and depend on different cycles, body clocks and
temperament clocks. One may want to snuggle up close when the
other just wants space. Examining this tension together and finding a
viable way out of it is an art that has to be learned before it's
acquired.
Another neo-romantic notion is that you will always feel your
love, that marriage must always be an intense sensual experience,
and there's something wrong if it isn't. But feelings change. There are
times when the only way love can be expressed is by loyalty to the
other person or by trust.
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edge their shadow, the sensitive spots that make up the dark side of
their personality. This will help them to advance in self-awareness.
The experience can also deepen the partners' mutual loving. If they
admit their hurt and discuss it with the other person without any
kind of reproach, they will get to know themselves better, and
progress in that awareness. This will bring husband and wife closer
together. The hurt will open them up to each other more effectively.
But some wounds are directed at the partner, for they seem to
carry their own malevolent desire to replicate in that person too.
This always happens when I infect the partner with my own
unconscious injuries. This means that I can't see myself clearly. I'm
subject to the illusion that I'm perfectly all right, and in the right.
And if my partner allows himself or herself to be continually
wounded by me, he or she too must ask whether that isn't due to
entertaining a false image of me. Possibly some archetypal image has
been substituted for the real me. Perhaps I have been typecast as the
healer, the liberator or redeemer. If this other person unconsciously
expects me to exude healing, I shall just carry on hurting him or her,
even when I don't want to. My partner will feel hurt all the time
because I just can't satisfy all these unconscious expectations of
healing and salvation. Then I'm not inflicting the wounds. Instead
they are self-inflicted results of illusory ideas of me. Then a woman
doesn't see her husband as he really is, but imprints on him the
image of the father who never took her seriously. She interprets
everything her husband says as instance after instance of not taking
her at her true worth. Even if he makes a joke, she thinks he isn't
taking her seriously. Or a man doesn't see his wife as the person she
actually is, but sees his mother in her. Because he expects her to react
as a mother to him, she can't help but disappoint him. But his wife
isn't wounding him. The fault lies with the ideal image of her that he
has manufactured.
A major task in marriage is to see the other person as she or he
really is, and to work hard continually at the task of freeing him or
her from the images we have unconsciously imprinted on that
person, so that the real individual is allowed to emerge.
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Married people will only build their house on firm ground if they
are always prepared to remain aware of reality - their own and the
other person's - and to accept it for what it is. Part of the reality they
have to accept is that their way passes through storms and floods. On
our road together we shall encounter our tempestuous passions, our
whims and tantrums, and our wild emotions, fierce arguments and
conflicts. We shall constantly experience the ways in which the
flotsam and jetsam of the unconscious come to the surface, collect
and threaten to overwhelm us. Then it is essential to let unconscious
needs and expectations out and to look at them together to prevent
them flooding our house and carrying it away. Then this marriage
will become a house built on rock, a house besieged by breaking
waves yet one where people can take refuge when their own lives are
menaced by the waters. It becomes a house where other people also
feel at home.
I find that the narrative of the deluge and Noah's ark offers a very
appropriate description of how married people can deal with their
conflicts. In every marriage a great deal of repressed material
surfaces from the unconscious, where all psychic material - both
mental functions and contents - not in the immediate field of
awareness dwells. ('Whatever appears in the light of perception is
conscious; what lies in the darkness beyond is unconscious, although
none the less living and effective' [C.G.Jung, Contributions to Analytical
Psychology, 1928, p. 90]). The contents of the unconscious will keep
coming to the surface if the partners never talk about what they feel
and how each feels hurt by the other, and if they refuse to face up to
their disagreements and conflicts, hoping that it isn't really that bad.
Then a mere pinprick can make the unconscious flood the whole
landscape of their life together. The dams they have constructed to
protect them from the deluge break. They seem to find no foothold,
nothing to cling to. They are in an emotional whirlpool. The more
they strike out, the deeper it takes them. Reciprocal accusations
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The story of Noah's ark shows a way out of this deluge. First we have
to have an ark into which we can withdraw when the flood waters
threaten to overwhelm us. This ark might be the inner protective
space each person needs if he or she is not to be equally rent by the
partner's unconscious. Everyone needs a place that offers peace and
quiet in which to recollect himself or herself. This is the place in all of
us where God himself dwells. There, neither person can be wounded
by the other. There, neither individual can be reached by the
unconscious matter which the other one drags along with him or her.
When everything round about one person is flooded by the contents
of the unconscious rising from the depths of the soul, he or she must
withdraw into the quiet of that inner space. There I can contact
myself and there I shall find God, who dwells within me. In God I
shall slowly become able to see what is going on around me, and to
make some kind of judgement without being overwhelmed by it all.
The ark can also be the protective space into which both partners
withdraw from the conflicts of their environment. They are both in
constant need of time for each other, or they will drown in the deluge
of daily life.
Clear structures
But the ark also stands for the structure a marriage needs in crisis
situations. Noah has taken his wife, his three sons and their wives and
all kinds of animals of both sexes into the ark. The ark provides an
ordered structure even amidst the chaos of the deluge. An unyielding
outer framework is important when a relationship is in a crisis, and
no one can find solid ground to stand on. The couple must wait in
the ark until the waters subside. They carry on living in the reliable
structure they have chosen until they can open the ark and inspect
the water.
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First of all the ark reaches Mount Ararat and finds somewhere
secure to rest. Then the first mountain-tops are sighted. The land
that has borne the marriage can be seen again. Not everything has
been ruined by the deluge. But Noah has to wait forty days until the
water subsides further. Then he releases a raven from the ark. The
raven stands for intelligence. Reason has to emerge and let the soul
know where the secure dry land is. The mind has to work out what
has happened. At this stage it doesn't assess it minutely but just tries
to understand. If I understand what welled up in me and what
released this inner deluge, I shall have come a long way. If the
partners carry on accusing each other, more emotions will flood from
their reciprocal wounds and make it impossible to resolve anything.
Reason has to risk an initial description and modest analysis of what
has happened, without trying to evaluate it.
After the raven, Noah releases a dove. The dove is a symbol of love.
In ancient Greece the dove of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was a
sacred creature. In the Middle East it was associated with Ishtar, the
goddess of fertility. Both partners have to get in touch with their love
again. No sign of love appeared during the deluge of overflowing
emotions. But when the waters have subsided it is possible to test the
level of the love that is still there, and its capacity.
The first dove returns to the ark because it finds no dry land on
the earth. One partner sends out his or her love. But if there is no
receptive place in the other person, he or she must take it back into
the ark so that it can rest and grow stronger. Noah waits another
seven days until he lets the second dove fly away. Seven is the
magical number of transformation. Change occurs when the divine is
joined to the human. In any conflict we must remember that God
can transform everything in us that is unresolved and unfinished,
and turn the waters of the unconscious into a fertile source.
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Oil has a soothing effect. Every conflict wounds people. The words
hurled at me by another person injure me. Sometimes, after a
quarrel, the hurtful words come back to me and make my wound
deeper. There is no point scratching old wounds. No relationship is
without a degree of hurt. The decisive thing is to allow my and my
partner's love to flow into my wounds. That will heal them. If I keep
worrying my hurt it will go on annoying me. The irritation of my
already wounded feelings will affect the relationship. Because I am
wounded I shall wound this other person too. But love soothes my
distress and has the power to heal it. The scar will remain but the
spot where it appears is still sensitive.
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Strange to say, the tender skin covering the old wound prompts
me to treat myself and my partner gently. If I let love flow into my
injury then it will become a pearl for me and others. Hildegard of
Bingen knew this. She was well aware that we can't avoid wounds
but saw the mystery of a successful life in the way our wounds are
transformed into pearls. Love is the power that changes our injuries
into something precious. My wound constantly reminds me that my
deepest longing is to be able to love and be loved.
The wound shows me that I am directed to God's healing love.
Without divine love, human love will always hurt me. Human love is
fragile. It is mixed with possessive claims, desires to own, envy,
jealousy and expectations. Only if our love is permeated with God's
love will it possess the power to cure and change us.
The second dove brings an olive branch as a sign of
reconciliation and peace. The third dove that Noah despatches
after another seven days never returns. It finds enough nourishment
on the earth, and dry land on which to alight. The love we send out
to another person in a crisis pauses to heal his or her wounds, then
flies on freely. Once again it finds sufficient nourishment on the
earth of our everyday lives. Our life continues as before, but now it
is suffused with the love that flies to and fro. Love has become like a
dove borne on currents of air yet alighting where we work and live.
Love makes our daily life flow and lends us wings to rise ever and
again above the difficulties and harsh realities that threaten to keep
us close to the ground.
The story of the Deluge is a symbolic account of how we can
withstand and transform crises and conflicts. It shows us that we
ought to enter married life realistically, not euphorically. But it also
gives us grounds to hope that disagreement won't tear us apart, and
that we won't be overwhelmed by what each of us brings along from
our previous life-history. Conflicts are perhaps inevitable, but
leftover fragments of our past wounds which we haven't worked
through certainly have to be dealt with. We don't enter our life
together as people who have already dealt with every possible
problem and devised a civilized warning system to defuse any
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c) Finding the source of love and joy (Phil. 4.4-9; John 15.9-17)
One couple I know chose two texts from the Letter to the Philippians
and John's gospel as readings for their marriage service. They offer
excellent hints for a successful married life. Both texts are concerned
with joy and love.
Paul tells the Philippians that they should rejoice. But joy is also a
question of opting for it. There are plenty of people who rejoice
outwardly but celebrate their inner frustration. They're not even in a
good humour. It's all show. In fact they are borne down by
depression and frustration. They are not living their own lives, but
are being lived. Married people must constantly opt effectively for
joy and love. These are not feelings you can simply produce to order.
But if you opt for these emotions, which are already there waiting to
be chosen in the depths of your soul, they will grow stronger and
gradually determine your attitude.
A partner's closeness
Paul says we should rejoice because the Lord is near. The closeness of
Christ is always a reason to rejoice, but so is the closeness of a
partner. If we know that he or she is inwardly close to us, even when
we happen to be a long way off physically, we can rejoice at that
nearness. We are not alone. Love overcomes boundaries and assures
us of a partner's presence wherever we are. Another reason for
rejoicing is the absence of anxiety. 'Do not be anxious ...'. In other
words: Don't worry about anything at all. The Greek word in the
original means anxious self-concern. Worrying about yourself
destroys joy and lets love fade away. If I keep wondering whether
my partner respects me, is loyal to me, still loves me, I make room for
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Our truth
Paul offers another reason for rejoicing, and uses words that never
recur elsewhere in his letters. They are terms taken from the Stoic
philosophy that was dominant in Greece at the time: 'And now, my
friends, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all
that is lovable and attractive, whatever is excellent and admirable -
fill your thoughts with these things' (Phil. 4.8). Paul clearly
intended these remarks for people in Philippi who thought they
could solve every difficulty by prayer and piety. You can't base a
marriage only on piety. It also calls for the human values
enumerated by Paul. Living together also needs clear rules of
communication for success. A precondition for mutual joy is to be
truthful, to hold out our own truth and entrust it to the other
person. We don't have to pretend. Everything that we conceal from
him or her makes our relationship less vital. The same is true of our
weaknesses. Only if we hold out our mistakes and weak points
without concealment, is there room for growth of a fearless
relationship that makes room for joy.
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each other what is right for us. Ultimately, the reconciliation of what
is right for each of us will be our joint harmony.
Worthy of love
We should also fix our thoughts on 'all that is just and pure, all that
is lovable and attractive'. 'Just and pure' means being open and clear
for our partner, not holding anything back, not pretending, making
what is seen and heard what you are. It also means loving the other
person without hidden motives, not using him or her for yourself, not
making sure there's something in it for yourself.
We must also think about what is lovable and attractive. Each of
us contains a sufficient number of lovable and attractive character-
istics. We can love each other only if we are aware of what is lovable
in our own selves. I know people who are always excusing themselves
for existing, for being who and as they are. They dare not entrust
themselves to others. But I can only love another person if I believe
that there are enough lovable qualities in him or her, and in myself.
We need positive spectacles to discover what is lovable and attractive
in ourselves and in other people.
A joy to be alive
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Everyday loving
Jesus talks constantly oflove (cf. John 15.9-17). The precondition for
our capacity to love is that Jesus loved us first. Husband and wife do
not start loving when they are married. They love because they have
already known love from their parents and from their brothers and
sisters. They can offer love because they were accepted by their
parents. And they can love because God loves them. We remain in
love because we keep the commandments. The love Jesus talks of is
very real. It has to prove itself in the trustworthiness, regularity and
naturalness of a married couple's day-to-day life.
I know a couple who are always saying 'I love you', yet the
husband simply never comes home at the agreed time and thinks
nothing of letting his wife wait two hours with a lovingly prepared
meal. Love has to be practical or it's just make-believe. Everyday
loving is needed so that the partners can trust each other, and each
can show the other his or her love by actually doing what the
practical occasions of life together demand.
Devotion
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Real love, of course, demands devotion from both partners and never
putting up a personal security screen that decides how far you can go
on the other's behalf. That kind of devotion culminates in fusion with
the other person in sexual love. But what happens in sex must also
occur in daily living as complete mutual acceptance.
Openness
Jesus mentions another precondition for the love which he lived before
us. He calls us his friends, because he has revealed everything to us
which he heard from his Father. Genuine love includes this readiness
to tell the other person about everything in me: my strengths, my
abilities, but also my weak points, the very aspects 1 so dislike because
they don't fit my ideal self-image. This absolute openness creates an
area of trust and freedom which is essential for lasting love. It doesn't
matter what I have inside me: even fear, doubts or aggression. If I
reveal them to him or to her, they can change, and something new can
emerge from them. An especially important result of this disclosure is
the assurance that each of us is accepted as we are. Of course, this
openness will destroy some illusions that I entertain about myself and
about him or her. But it will also create the free and relaxed
atmosphere love demands if it is to prosper. Naturally, you have to
carry on being open with each other, and that needs occasional
prompting. One way to do this is to take time out every week to talk
openly and freely along these lines. A number of people I know use
what they call a 'let's-talk stone', which might be a beautifully
rounded pebble from the beach. While one partner has this stone in
his or her hand, the other is not allowed to interrupt whatever he or
she says. Husband or wife has the right to come out with what he or
she feels. But then, as soon as the agreed time comes to an end, he or
she must hand the stone over and listen to whatever is said in return.
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biblical texts are certainly appropriate ways for a future bride and
groom to prepare for their wedding and their life together. They are
also worthwhile resources for married couples who have been
together for many years. We have to keep our experiences in mind
and reflect on their meaning, in case they should grow tired and
stale. It is good for married people to recall the power and
enthusiasm of their wedding day, when they felt so in love, and how
attractive they found each other. Their wedding photographs will
bring back memories of the actual day and ceremony. Perhaps they
still have or remember the texts from the Bible which they chose
then, and even some words or phrases from the sermon or homily.
These will prompt them to ask whether the way they live now is a
fitting sequel to all that promise, or anything that detracts from it has
crept into their relationship, and there is need for renewal.
A Silver or Golden Wedding anniversary is a good opportunity to
re-examine your married life to date and to draw on the very Source
of love, which never dries up because it is divine. Preparing for an
anniversary could be a suitable occasion for husband and wife to tell
each other what unites them, what they still find difficult, in what
respects they feel hurt, but also why they feel thankful and glad.
They could also discuss their special anniversary service, and how
they would like to arrange the renewal of their marriage vows. I
know some married couples who have developed something
approaching such a rite quite apart from more formal or public
celebrations of Silver, Gold and Diamond anniversaries. When they
sense that their love is somehow slackening, they switch off the lights,
light a bridal candle and once again slip their marriage rings onto
each other's finger. Each prepares a declaration in his or her own
words, or just says spontaneously what is important to him or her at
that moment. Some people do this on each anniversary. Each couple
should work out their own private ritual for this occasion.
I hope that this section contains a number of thoughts that will
inspire married people to remember when they first fell in love and to
vow to continue on their way with something approaching the same
enthusiasm. Commemorations undoubtedly help us to get in touch
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with the power of love and to renew it. Yet not only the beginning
and memories of it are important. Constant rediscovery of the one
true Source of love is essential. It is divine and therefore
inexhaustible. The wellspring of God's undying love can refresh
our own love, which is easily affected by life's various problems and
by our daily grind. As our love flows freely again, we can thank God
for its mystery, which has withstood all the storms and crises of life
together.
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6
INTRODUCTION
When writing about ordination, I have to ask myself what it means
to be a priest. How do I see myself as a priest? What is the most
important thing about my life as a priest? I remember endless
discussions in the 1970s about what it really meant to be a priest:
whether he was a leader of a parish or church community, or a
dispenser of the sacraments, or a pastor. In many dioceses nowadays
laypeople have already been appointed to preside over parishes. Not
only priests but pastoral workers, who may be men or women, do the
work of pastors. Dispensing the sacraments, however, is reserved to
priests. But is that all the priesthood means? I don't think so. It
would be an intolerable restriction.
I'm glad I'm a priest. An important aspect of my experience of the
priestly life is celebrating the Eucharist. And when I baptize children
as one of my priestly functions, it's a real joy to carry out this service
for people. But is service the be-all and end-all of the priesthood?
What exactly does it mean and involve? When I ask myself these
questions, I find that I can't answer them clearly and straight
fbrwardly. I find being a priest so many-sided that it can't be defined
satisfactorily in terms of tasks and duties. My existence as a priest has
to be assessed much more qualitatively.
When theologians discuss the priesthood, they constantly return
to the relation of the priesthood of all believers, which embraces all
Christians, to the office of a priest conferred on those whom the
bishop ordains and sends into the world to carry out their mission.
This commission is certainly an essential aspect of the priesthood. We
are not ordained priests to make us feel better, and to raise our self-
esteem - to make us special. Priests are sent to help people.
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acquainted with them: someone, in other words, who knew his or her
own soul. Those who won't let themselves be controlled by demons,
projections and fixed ideas, but whose souls are determined by God,
are a blessing for those round about them. They radiate a protective
influence, for they have succeeded in transforming a demonic power
into spiritual strength.
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them before God through prayer in order to discover his will for each
of them.
When I try to interpret these ancient tasks in present-day terms, I
think especially of their cleansing effect. The priest is there to wipe
out the projections others have cast on those under his care, and the
self-induced notions which they use to cloud their true image. He
cleanses them from the guilt that obscures their real nature. The
priest discerns the original beauty of God in human beings and is not
misled by prejudices. He helps people to trust these original,
unadulterated marks of God in their own lives, and thus to express
and assert the fundamental divine image within them.
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Priestesses
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Initiation rites
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practice. This aroused the opposition of certain priests, who felt that
Jesus was calling them into question. Indeed, we might deduce from
the narrative that conflict with the priestly aristocracy of the
Sadducees was a factor in his execution. The hearing of Jesus before
the Sanhedrin and high priests Annas and Caiaphas took place in the
latter's house, and we are told that the high priests and their
followers handed Jesus over to the Romans.
In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that priests were among the
opponents of the young Christian community (Acts 4.1). But many
priests also belonged to the original Jerusalem church (Acts 6.7). The
concept of the priest plays an important part in the Letter to Jewish
Christians (the Letter to the Hebrews), which calls Jesus the true
High Priest. Jesus has made the all-sufficient sacrifice that had
redeemed us, and has thus terminated the Old Testament cult of
sacrifices and the Levitic priesthood for ever. The term 'priest' is used
to describe Jesus's healing and saving effect. Jesus has redeemed us
from our sins. Therefore we no longer need priests to purify us of our
sins.
The first Letter of Peter calls believers holy priests, who 'can offer
those spiritual sacrifices which are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ'
(1 Pet. 2.5). The unknown author of this letter ascribed to Peter sees
spiritual sacrifice as leading a holy life in a world inimical to
Christians, and as offering yourself for guidance by Jesus's Spirit.
The idea that they are holy priests enables Christians (who lived
then as an excluded group in the Roman world) to feel that they are
specially chosen. It assures them that they are at home in the sacred
space of God's presence, where they may experience the closeness of
God. Here the biblical author refers not so much to the duties of a
priest as to the qualities that mark Christians out from others. These
are selection by God, holiness, or exclusion from a corrupt world,
and the royal and priestly dignity and value of the Christian
community. The image of holy priesthood is intended to give the
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Aquila 'have worked with me for Christ Jesus's (Rom. 16.3), in terms
that always refer to ecclesiastical service in other contexts. He also
says that Mary 'has worked so hard' for the church (Rom. 16.6),
using phrases that he often applies to his own apostolic activity. He
calls Andronicus and Junia (now generally interpreted as a woman,
and disregarding the male reading 'Junias') respected apostles
(Rom. 16.7). Paul's list in the Letter to the Romans shows that
women undertook responsible posts in the service of the Church.
Paul did not appoint them. They held their offices before him. But
Paul acknowledges their service. This presumably included preach-
ing Jesus's good news but also presiding over the Eucharist, which
was generally celebrated in a domestic setting at that time.
Therefore the historical evidence shows that there is no reason to
exclude women from the priesthood. Some theologians who think
they should be excluded from priestly office argue that only a man
can represent Christ as a priest. But it depends on which theology of
priestly office is used to support this line of argument. Jesus's
behaviour towards women certainly doesn't lend any weight to
theological assertions of this kind. Jesus accepted both women and
men as his disciples. And women were the first witnesses of the
Resurrection. Several commentators share the view that it is out of
order to use the biblical texts as evidence for excluding women from
priestly office. Undoubtedly a long process of rethinking will be
necessary in the Church before women can be admitted to Holy
Orders. But at the Second Vatican Council many bishops were
already in favour of ordaining women as deacon(esse)s.
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The image of those who held an office in the Church changed in the
course of time. Bishops and priests were no longer seen as presiding
over a priestly people but became a priesthood acting for and on
behalf of the laity. Ordination was the means of entry to the status of
priest. Ecclesiastical historians disagree about the reasons why the
Church tended increasingly to describe its office-holders in priestly
terms. Some experts think that this development was the result of
social pressure on the Church, since religions in the ancient world
needed a priesthood. Others believe that the pressures of fighting
heresy and schism were behind the growing emphasis on priests.
Priests in the early Church did more than preside over the
Eucharist. They had to dispense all the sacraments and were called
on especially to proclaim the word of God in sermons and to instruct
Christians in the teachings of the Christian faith. Cyprian speaks of
the sacred work of proclaiming the word and uses the Greek word for
'priestly activity' (hierourgein) in this context. Cyprian sees the
preaching of the good news as priestly activity on the same level as
administering the sacraments.
Interpreting the concept of the Church's office-bearers on the basis
of the Old Testament priesthood led to the increasing importance of
ordination and to the gradual imposition of celibacy, since cultic
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ORDINATION
From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that the apostles chose seven
men of good reputation to see to the daily distribution of food, and
laid their hands on them and prayed for them (cf. Acts 6.6). This was
the origin of ordination for the early Church. The bishop and priests
laid their hands on those chosen to perform a service in the Church,
prayed to the Holy Spirit for them, and in their prayer gave an
account of the things they trusted the Spirit would bring about in
them. The laying on, or imposition, of hands and the prayer of
ordination are the two essential elements of the ordination of bishops,
priests and deacons. Through the laying on of hands God is asked to
send down his grace on the ordinands. In the Church as we
encounter it in the pastoral letters of the New Testament, ordination
by the laying on of hands is a sacramental act, and the appropriate
spiritual capacity is conferred as a gift of grace for the exercise of an
office in the Church. The grace it conveys is a lasting gift.
In the course of the Church's history, these two basic rites were
supplemented by various other rituals, primarily the anointing of
hands, and the presentation of sacred vestments and of the liturgical
instruments, the chalice and paten. Ordination ceremonies gradually
became longer and more complex. In 1968, after the Second Vatican
Council, the rite for the ordination of bishops, priests and deacons
was revised, unified and reduced to the essential elements. I shall
concentrate on the rite of priestly ordination, and then mention some
aspects of the ordination of bishops and of that of deacons. I shall
also touch on the services of profession of abbots and abbesses and
ask whether such forms of ordination might not suggest suitable ways
of celebrating induction into yet other services and offices.
a) Ordination of priests
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Prostration
Now the bishop asks the faithful to pray for the ordinands, who lie
stretched out on the ground in the gesture known as prostratia. They
lie face down. This ancient custom symbolizes the priests' offering of
themselves to God just as a husband oilers himself to his wife. The
priests' position is also a sign of complete surrender to God, an
acknowledgement of their own powerlessness and of their own
humanity. They are to be ordained not because they have deserved
it, but because God has summoned them in all their weakness. While
the ordinands lie stretched out on the ground, the congregation
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chants or sings the Litany of the Saints. The bishop closes the litany
with his own prayer.
The most important part of the ordination rite takes place in silence.
The bishop silently lays his hands on the head of each of the
ordinands and silently prays that the Holy Spirit should (low
through him, transform him and fit him for his work. After the
bishop, all the priests who are present lay their hand on the
candidates in silence. It is a simple but impressive sight when priests,
old and young, impose their hands in total silence. It reminds each of
them of his own ordination and of what he has made of it. He prays
inwardly for the ordinands in his own words. Experience tells him
what the exercise of this office calls for, what dangers will face these
men, and what strength they will need to be good priests. The
decisive action occurs in silence. This is no human act but one of
confidence that the Holy Spirit works in peace and quiet. It is an
impressive yet modest rite. No great feats of language are involved
but all the priests who are there silently invoke the action of the
Spirit. No human abilities but only the movement of the Holy Spirit
is called for.
After this long silence, the bishop prays or chants the ordination
prayer, which names the most important duties of a priest. In this
prayer the bishop recalls the relation of the seventy elders to Moses.
The priest is described primarily as the bishop's co-worker, a teacher
of the faith, and a preacher of God's word. The bishop's most
important petition is a request to God to: 'Give to these your servants
the dignity of priests. Renew the Spirit of holiness in them. Grant, O
God, that they may hold fast to the office which they receive from
your hand; may their life offer encouragement and guidance to all.
Bless, sanctify and ordain your servants, whom you have chosen.'
The prayer breathes the spirit of Paul's first Letter to Timothy,
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After the anointing of hands, the bishop hands bread and wine to the
priests. They will transform them into the Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ whenever they say Mass. When he hands them these gifts, and
asks them to receive the gifts of the people for the celebration of the
Sacrifice, to consider very carefully what they are about, to execute it
with care, and to place their lives in the mystery of the cross, the
bishop speaks not so much of the potestas, or power, to transform these
elements, but of the mystery of the Eucharist. A priest must direct his
whole life to a personal emulation of Jesus's ultimate act of devotion
on the cross.
If any priest feels that celebrating the Eucharist has become no
more than a matter of routine, he should recall this rite. He should
think of what he is doing as symbolic of his whole life. A priest must
make his entire existence bread to give others nourishment.
Modelling myself on what happens in the Eucharist means offering
myself with Christ, being ready to risk my existence for people and
for the service which Christ has called me to perform. A priest is
continually reminded of the mystery of the cross when successful
moments in his pastoral work seem few and far between, and he has
to face up to his own darkness and loneliness. Being a priest is a
constant challenge. I am not simply a priest. I must trust ever more
deeply in the ultimate devotion of Jesus Christ, whom I celebrate
every day in the Eucharist.
Sign of peace
The bishop now bestows the sign of peace on the newly ordained
priests by embracing them warmly. The sign of peace expresses the
fact that they have been received into the community of priests and
that they should also feel emotionally at home in that fellowship. The
newly ordained priests go from one priest to another to receive the
sign of peace from each of them. Now a very personal note enters the
prescribed rite. The sign of peace is filled with kindness and joy and
each attending priest includes his own wishes for the former
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First blessing
After the bishop's blessing the newly ordained priests give their first
blessing to the whole congregation. There are many legends in this
connection. At one time it was said that you had to be prepared to
wear out a pair of shoes and get new ones to receive this blessing.
This probably expressed the feeling that the power of the Holy Spirit
flowed more strongly through the newly ordained than through the
hands of worn-out, routine-laden priests. The myth symbolizes the
new power and state that we wish the Holy Spirit to bring about in
us too.
b) Consecration of a bishop
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
Holy Spirit has appointed him a bishop to guide God's Church. The
bishop must follow the example of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. As an
exemplary Shepherd, Jesus knows his sheep and gives his life for
them. To be a shepherd does not mean primarily ruling, but serving.
The service accepted by the bishop is one of guidance. After the
ordination rite proper, the newly consecrated bishop is led to his
throne, on which he then sits. The throne is a symbol of the rule the
bishop now undertakes. But the preceding rites have warned him
that he must not rule like earthly monarchs. Jesus's words apply to
him: 'Among the heathen it is their kings who lord it over them, and
their rulers are given the title of "benefactors". But it must not be so
with you! Your greatest man must become like a junior and your
leader must be a servant' (Luke 22.25f.).
c) Ordination of a deacon
The diaconate was an office in its own right in the early Church. In
the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that the apostles chose seven
men to serve at meals so that the apostles could devote more effort to
the ministries of prayer and to the word of God. In the course of the
history of the Church, the diaconate became a mere intermediate
stage on the way to priestly ordination. Priests had to be ordained as
deacons before the priesthood was conferred on them. But it had
little significance in itself. The Second Vatican Council revalued the
work of a deacon and restored it to the status of an office in its own
right. We now also have permanent deacons, who make a conscious
decision not to become priests. Of course there is still a certain
tension in the rite of ordination, since the ordinands either become
permanent deacons or think of this office as just a step towards their
ordination as priests.
The ordination of deacons has a similar structure to that of priests.
The rite is even identical until the laying on of hands. But in the
conferring of the diaconate, only the bishop lays hands on the
prospective deacon. Priests are not involved. The ordination prayer
stresses aspects different to those brought out when the priesthood is
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ORDINATION
Ordination of virgins
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
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ORDINATION
Bearing testimony
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Celebrating rites
The findings and statements of the Second Vatican Council are not
the only important points of reference for my understanding of what
it means to be a priest. The archetypal images I have already
referred to are also essential. An archetype can be demanding but
also immensely inspiring. Nevertheless, it can be dangerous to
identify myself with an archetypal figure or concept, because it can
blind me to my own needs. But if I see these fundamental images as
instances of a power that can move and challenge me vitally, they
can help me to discover my potential. In the following pages I shall
oiler brief descriptions of a few images that help me to define the
nature of my priestly life.
A priest is a 'specialist' in rites. Nowadays we have begun to
recognize the healing eflect of rites and rituals once again. If I start
and close my day with an effective and inspiring rite or ritual
practice, I experience myself as a priest. Rites open up the heavens
over my life. They bring God's healing and loving immediacy into
my daily existence: into morning's greyness and evening's weariness.
They enliven starting and ending work, meals in common, and my
various discussions and consultations. I can rely on rituals. If I pick
up a stone, light a candle, move or shape my hands in a gesture, and
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Comforting humanity
The final archetypal image that says something about the mystery of
my priestly existence is that of the priest or priestess as someone who
gives a blessing. The act of blessing has two meanings for me.
The first is to sign or seal, as in making the sign of the cross. In
some countries, many mothers and fathers bless their children by
making the sign of the cross on their forehead when they say goodbye
to them. They do this to express the fact that they are blessed by
God, that they are entirely loved, and that everything in them is
good. They are, so to speak, inscribing on and in them the love with
which Christ loved us to the point of ultimate devotion on the cross.
They write that love on their children's bodies so that they can feel
this love physically. The sign of the cross also says: 'You belong to
God. You are free. No monarchs, emperors or empresses, or rulers,
no people on earth, have power over you.'
Blessing also means 'saying something good', as in the Latin word
benedicere (to speak well, say what is good). For me, being a priest
means addressing what is good in people, saying good things about
them and over them, and assuring them of God's healing and loving
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ORDINATION
this means that I can't simply live as I like. God laid his hand on me
to bless me and to fill me with the Holy Spirit. That is a constant
challenge for me. It is not primarily a matter of my abilities but of
my receptivity to the Holy Spirit. I mustn't proclaim myself or my
ability to put things over, but God. God wants to move people
through me. But that will succeed only if I am constantly in touch
with the inner Source through prayer and meditation. I shall soon be
exhausted as a priest if all I have to draw on is my learning and my
own strength.
When God lays his hand on me, it is not only a blessing but
sometimes a burden. The Prophet Jeremiah complains to God: 'I sat
alone, because your hand was upon me' Jer. 15.17 . When God
takes me by the hand, I am forced to be solitary. I can't tell everyone
what is happening to me. I am cradled in God's hand, but sometimes
I am also shaken about by it. God's hand rests on me as it rested on
Jesus and sent him out to announce the good news to humankind.
But God's hand can also hold me fast at the very moment when I
would like to llee from myself and the truth about my life. I have to
ask myself continually whether I am really letting God take hold of
me or just functioning and doing whatever is expected of me. Only if
I allow myself to lie gripped and moved by God can I grip people
and move them sufficiently to pass on what God has to say.
My hands were anointed when I was ordained. The oil of
anointing is a symbol not only of the Holy Spirit but of God's
tender love. Therefore my hands always remind me to extend his
love. It is not a matter of having everything under control, or of a
thoroughly organized presbytery and parish, but of touching
people tenderly and showing them that they are held in God's
kind and loving hand. God has inscribed his name in my hand and
my name in his hands.
Too often I find my hands are empty. I have nothing to give. I do
not understand the mystery of God. I am not all that sure of myself. Yet
these hands are there to give. They can only give what they continually
receive. On the one hand, I find it comforting that I can still give with
empty hands. Only empty hands can receive what God constantly puts
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ORDINATION
on Christ and to grow together with him. Paul says that we should
clothe ourselves by being merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble
in mind, most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to
forgive, and truly loving (Col. 3.12). It is not a matter of putting on a
beautiful robe in order to make myself stand out from the crowd, but
of growing into the robe of Christ so that I reflect Christ's love and
glory in my whole existence.
Putting on a new garment means that God has taken possession of
me. When washing feet, Jesus removed his outer garment, the robe of
glory, in order to put on the dress of a slave (John 13.4). In his
resurrection God clothed him in the garment of glory and
immortality. When I go to say Mass, I put on the radiant garment
of resurrection. But I remove it after Mass in order to experience
physically that, like Jesus, I must serve people and wash their feet.
Being ordained
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For more than ten years now I have been helping priests and religious
on retreats or refresher courses. Many conversations and discussions
have shown me how much priests sutler nowadays from the realities of
their everyday life. There are those who have to 'run' three or four
parishes and feel overburdened. They are torn between the different
interests of individual parishes. Others feel lonely. They lead a solitary
life in the presbytery. When they get back in the evening after so many
services or meetings they miss the presence of someone to discuss the
day's events with. Others can't deal with the high expectations of the
parish. They realize they don't measure up to the image of the ideal
priest the parish seems to entertain. They do everything they can. but
they just aren't gifted preachers. They find they can't inspire and
move people. Others are simply fed up with daily quarrels and
infighting in the parish. So they fall back on their basic duties, which
they carry out more or less inadequately. Work is constantly to the
fore, whereas spiritual life gradually retreats very much into the
background. Some priests only pray when they're conducting a
service. Their spirituality dries up. They are dissatisfied, only too
clearly, but they can't find any way out of the impasse.
It would exceed the scope of this book if I tried to examine all the
problems that assail priests in the present-day world. I shall offer
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Relationships
The second area that is important for a successful priestly life is that of
relationships. The unmarried priest needs good relationships, friend-
ships in which he can be entirely himself, and in which he plays no
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243
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CONCLUSION
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realize that this question really doesn't interest me. I don't want to
define myself in comparison with other people, but in terms of" the
mystery of being a priest as I experience it in meeting Jesus Christ,
the true Priest. For me, being a priest means becoming more and
more like Jesus Christ, who offered his life for us with total devotion,
and who healed, supported, comforted and challenged us, and
opened our eyes. Jesus Christ is the Priest who leads us to God. For
me, the fascinating and wholly fulfilling mission of a priest is to share
in this work of opening people's eyes so that they can see God,
helping their hearts to be touched by God, and enabling them to be
open to God's healing and loving presence.
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7
Anointing of the Sick: comfort
and tenderness
INTRODUCTION
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ANOINTING OF THE SICK
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THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS
who are infirm in body and soul, in order to heal them. Jesus trusts us
to encourage those who are discouraged, to straighten the physically
maimed and mentally downcast, to inspire the dumb to recover their
voices and speak out, and to call on the crippled to stand up and
walk as people in their own right. We are to take those marginalized
by and expelled from human society into our own community. Our
task is to show those who can't accept themselves that they are
worthy of affection and love and are welcome. We should awaken to
life those who are dead, who are only just functioning and have
become inwardly void. We should try to drive out the demons that
prevent people from being themselves. These devils or demons may
be our inner compulsions, but also 'unclean spirits' that distort our
thinking, as well as poisonous and bitter feelings, or illusions and
delusions that lead us into a make-believe world that we substitute
for reality.
Mark's gospel tells us how the disciples healed the sick: 'They
expelled many evil spirits and anointed many sick people with oil
and healed them' (Mark 6.13). The Fathers of the Church (followed
by the Council of Trent) referred to this passage as a basis for the
sacrament of anointing the sick. Oil was a recognized medicine in the
ancient world. Olive oil especially was seen as a symbol of spiritual
power, for it came from the fruit of the olive tree, which grew on
unrelenting ground yet proved fruitful. Olive oil is not only a
medicine but a symbol of light and of cleanness or purity. When the
disciples anoint the sick with oil, they are acting not as physicians in
the normal sense, but as witnesses to Jesus Christ. One commentator,
Walter Grundmann, says that oil 'in the disciples' hands has a
sacramental significance because, like the laying on of hands, it
symbolizes the reality of God's helping hands'. By anointing the sick
with oil, the disciples call down God's power of blessing on the
infirm. They ask that just as oil heals wounds God will focus his
healing power on the sick person in the name of Jesus Christ.
The early Church based the practice of anointing the sick
primarily on a passage from the Letter of James: 'Is any among you
sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over
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ANOINTING OF THE SICK
him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer
of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if
he has committed sins, he will be forgiven' (Jas. 5.14f.). The sick here
obviously means those who are confined to their beds and therefore
can't fetch the elders themselves, but have to send someone to do so
on their behalf. But these sick people haven't lapsed into insensibility
and aren't close to death. They can still call for the elders. The elders
may be bishops; they are certainly those who govern the church and
teach and preach in it. They are office-holders and not charismatic
healers. They are to pray over the sick and anoint them with oil. The
anointing accompanies and strengthens prayer.
Oil was a popular medicine in Israel as elsewhere in the ancient
world. Oil was used to relieve the sick and, for example, the aged
Adam as he lay dying. It was used to drive out demons. It protected
people from death, and it maintained and reinforced life.
When they carry out the anointing, the elders call on the name of
the Lord. They are not only acting on Jesus's commission to them
but by his authority and power. As they anoint the sick with oil and
pray for them, Jesus, the Lord himself, is present. As the elders call
on the name of the Lord, they are tilled with the power of Jesus, who
heals the sick. This was Peter's experience when he healed the man
who had been lame from birth at 'that gate of the temple which is
called Beautiful': 'And his name, by faith in his name, has made this
man strong whom you see and know; and the faith which is through
Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all'
(Acts 3.16).
The anointing of the sick is not some kind of magic. The healing
action should be ascribed to prayer empowered by faith and to the
knowledge through faith that the Lord can help us, as well as to the
firm conviction that he will actually do so. Ultimately, it is always
Jesus Christ himself who heals the sick if the elders, out of faith, ask
him to do so.
Commentators on the Bible have tried to explain the meaning of
the three verbs 'save', 'raise up', and 'forgive' in James 5.14f.,
debating whether they refer to the physical and mental cure of the
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medicine for body and soul. They either drank it, expecting it to
strengthen them physically and spiritually, or anointed their wounds
with it. A letter from Pope Innocent I in 416 AD shows that anointing
was not reserved to priests but could be carried out by any believer.
The Pope explained the passage from James's letter thus: 'This
undoubtedly applies to sick believers who can be anointed with the
holy oil of chrism. This oil is consecrated by the bishop and may be
used for anointing not only by priests but by all Christians if they or
their families are in need of it.' The Pope calls the oil a sacrament.
Accordingly, its use was forbidden to penitents, who were excluded
from the Church during the prescribed penitential period.
The early Church contrasted the sacrament of consecrated oil
with superstitious and heathen practices. To ensure that Christians
no longer frequented soothsayers and magicians, the Church took its
ministry of healing seriously and consecrated the oil. Christians were
to receive Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist and thus
experience healing. They were also to take the consecrated oil home
to anoint themselves or to be anointed with it by their relatives. This
practice was a response to the fundamental human need for healing
of physical and spiritual afflictions. At first believers brought the oil
to church for it to be blessed after the consecration. From the fifth
century AD the bishop blessed the oil only on Holy Thursday.
Christians could obtain it only from the bishop if they wished to
anoint the sick. Surviving liturgical texts name all the illnesses for
which anointing was permitted. With the anointing of the sick, the
Church responded to actual human needs, and by consecrating the
oil which anyone was permitted to take with them, offered ill people
a symbol of hope that their sickness would be cured.
In the early centuries of the Christian era, care for the sick was
associated with every celebration of the Eucharist. In the Eucharist
Christians not only celebrated the transformation of the lives of those
present, but also drew from the memorial of Jesus's death and
resurrection an assurance that Jesus's healing power would console
the sick they had left at home. In later years, the administration of
the anointing of the sick was associated more particularly with the
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bishop. He was the immediate source of the healing oil. But every
Christian had the task of administering this sacrament, and the right
to do so. The association with the bishop consisted merely in having
to ask him for the oil. We should reconsider this practice nowadays
when we debate possible contemporary forms of anointing the sick
and discuss the administration of the sacrament by pastoral workers.
In the eighth century AD the bishops began to emphasize the
anointing of the sick in a new way. They decided to make priests the
ministers of the sacrament. They instructed priests to care for the sick
and to support them while they were dying. But still the bishops
thought of the anointing of the sick primarily as a preparation for
death. In 769, therefore, a decree of Charlemagne insisted that 'the
dying were not to die without an anointing with consecrated oil, and
without reconciliation and viaticum.' At that time, under the
influence of the Eastern Church, the anointing of the sick was
associated with repentance. Because repentance carried weighty
conditions with it, people left it to the last moment. Therefore the
anointing of the sick became 'extreme unction'. When a separate
sacramental theology developed in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, and it was finally decided that there should be seven
sacraments, Thomas Aquinas defined the anointing of the sick as the
'ultimate and, as it were, all-embracing sacrament of our entire
spiritual journey to salvation.' The anointing of the sick prepared
people to share in divine glory. Accordingly, it became the
sacrament of our last passage, from life through death into Life.
The Second Vatican Council discarded this one-sided view of the
sacrament as extreme unction. Now it was no longer to be
administered only in extreme danger of death, but even at the first
sign that a Christian's life was threatened on account of sickness or
the infirmities of age. In his Apostolic Constitution on the sacrament,
Pope Paul VI no longer mentioned an actual danger of dying as a
condition for the anointing of the sick, but spoke of people whose
state of health was under serious threat. After this, a dispute arose
among theologians. Some maintained that the anointing of the sick
might now be seen too restrictively as consolation for illness of any
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kind, and that society's virtual suppression of the fact of death had
possibly had some effect on the ways in which pastoral care was
conceived and practised in the Church.
The theologian Gisbert Greshake, for instance, thinks that both
considerations should be preserved. The sacrament should appear
both as anointing of the sick and as extreme unction; as help for sick
people and as a preparation for dying. Sickness always makes us
think of dying. In some way it always presages death. Therefore
prayer for the sick is prayer for healing, but also a request that the
sick should accept their illness, and remember that they are mortal
and have no guarantee that they will recover.
If we think of illness as a condition that upsets our assurance and
well-being, the anointing of the sick promises us that in this fragile
state we are open to the mystery of Jesus Christ, and that through
this meeting with him we can enter the mystery of his own unsettled
life. The anointing of the sick always enables us to experience our
own finiteness. But when my own mortality is brought home to me, I
can also be sure that I am in God's loving hand. His loving kindness
can heal my sickness. It will be with me even if God decides to leave
me in this state and asks me to pass through the doors of death.
In recent years, the question of the appropriate minister of the
anointing of the sick has also been raised. Should this ministry be
reserved for priests, or can anyone who cares for the sick exercise it?
Many pastoral workers in hospitals and nursing homes think that
they should be allowed to anoint the sick, since they are in continual
contact with them. Then the sacrament would be the high point of
pastoral care. Greshake argues that since James refers to 'elders', that
is, representatives of the parish or church community, or office-
bearers, anointing should be carried out only by priests and deacons.
It is (he says) a matter not only of personal care, but of an action of
the Church intended to convey the loving touch of Jesus Christ. But
Pope Innocent I's letter of 416 AD would seem to support the view
that the anointing of the sick should be entrusted to those who care
for the sick: in other words, their relatives and pastoral workers in
hospitals and similar institutions. The link to the official Church
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they once thought were so important and essential for life to function
properly have to be cancelled. All plans for themselves, and at work
or in the family, have to be postponed. No one can say if they will
ever be realized.
In this situation of existential confusion, Jesus Christ who suffered
meets such people in the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. We
are not told that Jesus fell ill. But in his Passion we are confronted
with archetypal images of the various stages of sickness. In illness we
experience expulsion from the 'club' of strong and healthy people. We
feel that no one understands us. We are lonely, rejected and forgotten.
Like Jesus in his Passion, we suffer pains that we can scarcely stand.
And we go through the experience of facing death. But in the
anointing of the sick we encounter not only the suffering Jesus, but
Jesus the physician who healed the sick. Jesus treated the sick in a
special way. We are often told that he was filled with compassion
when he saw a sick person. The Greek word for compassion
(splanchnizomai) means that Jesus was affected by their illness 'in his
very bowels', so that he did not treat ill people as objects but with
fellow feeling. He came close to them and empathized with them. The
Fathers of the Church saw the sacrament as one in which the hand of
the historical Jesus touched us. In the anointing of the sick, Jesus looks
at us as he looked at the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda. He
understands us. He senses how we feel. He feels pity for us. He feels
with us, and he touches us so that we come into contact with the inner
sources of divine power that can cure us. But he not only treats us
tenderly and sympathetically, as he did lepers or those born deaf and
dumb. He also makes us turn round and face our own will, and asks
us: 'Do you want to get well again?' (John 5.6). Do I really want to
make an effort to get well again? Or have I given in to my illness? It
could even be rather advantageous, offering me a chance simply to let
go, to shun responsibility and allow myself to be looked after. But
then Jesus suddenly says: 'Get up, pick up your bed and walk!' (John
5.8). He wants to rouse the power concealed within me.
Jesus meets me as the Physician who can really heal me. But I
have no guarantee that he will also cure my body. I can't compel a
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Jesus defended her when one of his disciples objected: ' "Why wasn't
this perfume sold?" Jesus replied: "Let her alone, let her keep it for
the day of my burial"' (John 12.7). When Martha anointed Jesus's
feet, she showed him her love, which extended beyond death. When
his feet took him over the threshold of death he was to remember her
love, which went with him. From time immemorial the Church has
associated death with the maternal aspect of God. For centuries
Mary, who held her dead Son in her bosom, has been the image of
hope for Christians. As we die, we shall not fall into cold and
darkness but into the warmth of God's motherly embrace. Dying is
connected with motherhood, for to die is to be reborn.
The tender rite of anointing the sick is intended to give us hope
that our illness will be healed, but also to remove our fear of death. It
does not suppress the reality of dying. It makes us face it as a
possibility. The decisive point is that we are surrounded by God's
loving kindness in sickness, in health, and in death. Sickness as the
undermining of our existence makes us sensitive enough to hope for
this. To make sure that we do not suppress illness and the possibility
of dying, we need the experience of Jesus's loving touch and of an
encounter with Jesus the Physician, who walked through his death to
resurrection.
St Anselm of Canterbury wrote of Jesus as our Mother. In the
anointing of the sick we meet Jesus as the fatherly and motherly
person who fills us with his masculine power and at the same time
takes us into his arms like a mother. The meeting with Jesus
strengthens us so that we can make the transition from health to
sickness, and from life to death, fearlessly and trustingly. Our
encounter with Christ assures us that we shall be enclosed in God's
maternal love when we pass from this world into the next.
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The official rite calls for the priest to greet the sick people and other
members of the congregation. After this greeting, if appropriate, he
can sprinkle the sick person and the room with holy water. Suitable
words to accompany this would be: 'May this holy water remind us
of our reception of baptism and of Christ who redeemed us by his
Passion and Resurrection.' This brief rite tells us that baptism and
the anointing of the sick are associated. Greshake says that the
anointing of the sick is 'the renewal of baptism in a situation that
brings people up against existential limits which they cannot
overcome by themselves'. The holy water reminds the sick that in
baptism they were received into communion with Christ, and that
they have, as it were, grown up with Christ. Just so, they will endure
their illness in Christ's company. In baptism we have already crossed
the threshold of death. Now death has no power over us. In baptism
we were buried with Christ and rose again with him (cf. Rom. 6).
The holy water which the priest sprinkles over the sick person and
the whole room is intended to show the sick person symbolically that
he or she is lying in a sacred area filled by the Holy Spirit. True
healing comes only from the very Source of holiness. The blessed
water is intended to put the sick in contact with that inner Source
within them: with the wellspring of the Holy Spirit, who will flow
through them with his healing power.
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them. Jesus Christ is among us now. All those here will pray for the sick
person in his name and through his power. James told the Christian
community to make sure that the elders visited the sick to pray for
them and anoint them with oil in the Lord's name. It is essential for the
priest administering the sacrament to use words that reflect something
of the healing atmosphere that radiated from Jesus himself. He can't
just read it out. What he says must be spoken from the heart and touch
the heart of the sick person. We are told that Jesus noticed the woman
who for eighteen years had been ill from some psychological cause, was
bent double, and couldn't straighten herself up (Luke 13.12). He spoke
to her in such a way that she was released from her isolation, and came
over to him. Only then did he say: 'You are set free from your illness!'
Healing words have to be uttered in a healing atmosphere, not in a
cold and uninspiring climate of formal language.
The confession
The rite then prescribes an act of confession, to be spoken not only by
the sick person but by everyone present. Instead of a general
confession, the priest can ask the sick person and his or her relatives
to be silent for a while, and to hold their guilt before God trusting
that he forgives all guilt and accepts us unconditionally. Since many
sick people are plagued by feelings of guilt, thinking that they might
be responsible for their illness or that it could be a punishment from
God, it is advisable to stress God's forgiveness. It is pointless to start
interrogating ourselves about the exact details of our guilt.
Accusations or excuses won't help us. We should just hold out our
guilt in God's presence without analyzing and assessing it ourselves.
We should simply trust that we are accepted by God with all our
indiscretions and errors, and that God's love is stronger than
everything that might try to separate us from him.
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Then come the bidding prayers, or petitions. The priest can ask
everyone there to express their concerns, wishes and request in their
own words. This will prompt an atmosphere of authentic prayer and
hope for the sick. A sick person has an opportunity to sense that
prayer encloses his or her relatives and friends like a protective shield
or dome, within which he or she becomes the focus of an intense flow
of warmth and love. The sick person and his or her condition are at
the centre of all this intensity. The extempore petitions allow people
to express feelings that might never be enunciated otherwise. This
relieves any pressure on the others there and helps the sick people
themselves. They feel that the people round them care for them, love
them and hope for what is best for them. If no one is willing to pray
in his or her own words, then friends and relatives should be asked to
pray in silence. Silent prayer can also evoke an atmosphere of hope
and love in which sick people can feel supported.
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afflictions, against which they rebel inwardly. Only those who are
reconciled can become healthy and whole. The prayer prescribed by
the rite retains something of this symbolism: 'Lord, grant your
servant who is anointed with this holy oil in the power of faith
alleviation of his (her) pains and strengthen him (her) in his (her)
weakness.'
After the prayer I anoint the sick person on the forehead and on
the hands. When anointing the forehead I say: 'May the Lord of his
great mercy help you through this holy anointing and accompany
you with the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.' When I anoint the
hands I say: 'May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise
you up through his grace. Amen.' In the Middle Ages, and before the
Second Vatican Council, the priest anointed all five senses. Nowa-
days the anointing is limited to the forehead and the palms of the
hands. Some bishops' conferences interpret this anointing as
including the entire individual as a thinking and acting person.
St John Chrysostom says that the forehead is a person's noblest part.
He sees it as symbolic of the intellect by means of which one opens up
to God and directs one's drives and emotions. The hands symbolize
human action. We address our everyday problems with our hands.
We work with them but we also touch each other with them. We
shake another's hand. \Ve stroke him or her tenderly. The hands
stand for our relationships and for everything that goes to make up
our daily existence. W r hen sick people open their hands for the
priest's blessing, this signifies that they are not clinging rigidly to
their health but surrender themselves to God and are ready to accept
his gift of healing in their empty hands.
Anointing is a gentle action. I anoint the sick person's forehead
and hands attentively and lovingly. Some priests merely make the
sign of the cross with the oil on the forehead and on the hands. It is
more effective to anoint the hands entirely. If the illness has a precise
location, it may be appropriate for the priest to anoint this area too
while praying for healing in his own words. Some priests add a few
drops of attar of roses to the oil for anointing, so that it is more
fragrant. Anointing is a sensual action. Therefore the sense of smell
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Then the priest says a prayer for the sick person. Various prayers
are possible, depending on the specific situation of the sick
individual: whether he or she is suffering from the symptoms of
extreme old age, is in a critical state, or is actually in the throes of a
final struggle with death. I can keep to the prescribed prayers or
pray in my own words for the sick person, asking that the anointing
with oil will strengthen, comfort and fill him or her with God's love.
Then I ask everyone to say the Lord's Prayer. I suggest holding
hands so that we form a circle of prayer round the sick person. Then
we can feel the force of the prayer flowing through us and enclosing
the ill man or woman in a protective circle. If I think it more
appropriate, I invite relatives to open their hands to form an empty
bowl, and to express our entire longing for God's kingdom and
salvation in a joint Our Father. If the sick individual wants to
receive communion, the best point would be after the Lord's
Prayer. The early Church saw communion as a medicine for body
and soul alike. In communion the sick person can physically
experience the presence of Christ the Physician. Just as Jesus let his
healing power flow to and through the sick, so his healing love
enters the sick man or woman's body in communion.
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The priest closes this part of the service with a blessing. I prefer the
form of blessing some versions of the rite offer as an alternative: 'May
Jesus Christ, our Lord, be with you to protect you. May he go before
you to guide you; may he stand behind you to guard you. May he
look graciously on you, preserve you, and bless you. May almighty
God, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, bless you (and all who are
now present with you).' During the blessing I also lay my hands on
the sick person again so that he or she can experience it with all the
senses. A blessing (the Latin benedicere signifies saying something
good) means wishing that the sick person may receive all conceivable
good things from God's bounty. Blessing also includes actually
touching a person to impart God's love to his or her body. As I say
the blessing I lay my hands on the sick person's head, and with the
final words I make the sign of the cross with my thumb on his or her
forehead, mouth and chest. This enables the sick to experience
physically God's healing love touching them, and the goodness I
wish them in God's name to be inscribed in their thoughts, words
and feelings.
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The sacrament of anointing the sick shows us that illness can become
an opportunity to experience God. When Jesus healed sick people, he
saw this as an expression of the coming of God's kingdom. God is the
Healer. Vanquishing sickness is a sign of God as the Lord and Giver
of life. God wants people to be sound and whole, to be saved. This is
not just a matter of eternal salvation but has to do with the healing of
sickness and infirmity. When John the Baptist's disciples ask Jesus if
he is the Messiah, he replies: 'Go and tell John what you see and
hear: the blind are recovering their sight, cripples are walking, lepers
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being healed, the deaf hearing, the dead being brought to life and the
good news is being given to those in need' (Matt. 11.4f.). Jesus's
disciples are to do what he did. Accordingly, he sends them out to
heal the sick. The anointing of the sick is a fulfilment of his
commission of healing.
I see two tasks as necessary elements for integration of the
sacrament of anointing the sick into our lives. One is the summons
we are all called on to answer: to heal one another. The other is the
challenge to experience our sickness spiritually, to see it as a spiritual
task.
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for all of us. First and foremost it's a matter for relatives. Chaplains
meet with a variety of attitudes in this respect. There are family
members who visit their relatives in hospital and make time to talk to
them. They don't chat about superficial things but listen attentively
to what the sick people have to say to them. Others make regular
visits but avoid the topic of illness. They relate what has been
happening at home. They satisfy the patients' curiosity but not their
longing for a real encounter. Yet others are frightened to visit the
seriously sick. They don't want to have to deal with the theme of
illness in any way. The sacrament of anointing the sick is a challenge
to treat them as laid down in the rite: to lay hands on them and pray
for them; to provide an opportunity for them to feel protected and
speak openly about their infirmities; to touch them tenderly, as in the
anointing itself; and to help them to hope and trust that God sees
them in their condition, and that Jesus's healing power can
transform their sickness.
But, as Christians, we are not only commissioned to care for the
sick and to pray for them. Jesus sends his disciples out to heal the
sick. Many Christians think they should leave healing to doctors and
other specialists. But if we take Jesus's words seriously, we are all sent
into the world to heal the sick. And if this is our mission, then we
must be able to do it. But what exactly does this mean? It certainly
doesn't mean becoming amateur healers. I think of Jesus's
commission to heal as trusting in the healing power of prayer, and
as striving with all our might to radiate a healing presence. We
mustn't limit our faith to the illness itself. Concentrated prayer can
heal people. On the other hand, prayer shouldn't be thought of as
magical. We must avoid conveying any feeling of guilt to someone
who isn't cured by prayer. It has nothing to do with his or her lack of
faith. We must never forget the possibility of the miracle of healing,
but we have to leave it to God to decide how to react to this
particular illness. Prayer is not a magic formula. We can't be certain
that God will answer our prayers as we would like them to be
answered. He always listens to them. But his will remains a mystery.
How can we become healing individuals? We find some people
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animals and plants. Humans are born to suffer. The more helpless we
are, the more receptive we become to morality and religion. The
more difficult life is, the higher we can climb.'
Other writers, such as Heinrich Heine (a leading German poet of
the nineteenth century, 1797-1856), Maxim Gorky (the great
Russian novelist and playwright, 1868-1936) and Leo Weismantel
(a German teacher and novelist, 1888-1964), defied or protested
against their sickness. Heine found it quite impossible to reconcile
himself to illness. On the contrary, his pain made him oversensitive,
and induced a mood of self-hatred and dislike of others. Gorky
despised sickness. He simply refused to acknowledge it, derided it
and fought it throughout his life. Yet it wore him down in the end.
Leo Weismantel took no notice of his illness. 'I acted as if I were in
good health.' He simply ignored it and devoted himself to his work.
He decided to live a shorter but more intense life. This new-found
dedication to his writing proved deeply rewarding. The resulting
'level-headed and intensified state of mind had a beneficial effect on
my physical condition'.
The psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) tried
to 'live cheerfully and optimistically' in spite of his illness. Christian
Morgenstern (a much-loved German writer of verse both poignant
and amusing, 1871-1914) refused to allow his consumption to dictate
the way in which he lived. He accepted his sickness, but treated it as
something wholly external. He refused to let it affect his inner self.
But he also saw illness as an opportunity: 'Every sickness has a
particular meaning, for every affliction is also a process of cleansing
from something. It is up to us to discover what that something is.' He
tried to distance himself inwardly from his sickness. His wife
Margarete tells us that Morgenstern smiled even though his suffering
became unspeakable: 'He was full of the kind of light and pure good
humour that gives one the power to surmount everything and turn it
to good account - a power possessed only by those with an
unshakeable awareness of the way to inner freedom.' Morgenstern
himself said: 'I am sure that no truly free person can be ill. I want
every line of my works to bear witness to this truth.' Because
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Sickness as prayer
For me, the laying on of hands prescribed in the rite of anointing the
sick symbolizes my holding myself and my sickness under the
protection of God's loving hand, in the sure knowledge that in my
condition I am under his protection. I can't understand my sickness.
I just suffer from it. Nevertheless, I know that in this state I am in
God's hands. When he was ill, Reinhold Schneider knew that God
was holding him. Similarly, I realize that illness can be the place
where I meet God. In this state I physically experience God holding
me in order to open himself to me and embrace me.
The anointing with oil becomes a symbol of God's healing love
pouring into me and into my hurt and agony. When the pain
becomes too much to bear, I can imagine God's love flowing into it
and soothing it. God's love can heal my sickness. But I mustn't
become fixated on the idea of it freeing me from all my symptoms.
Perhaps the healing will take place only in my soul. In any case, I
shall experience my sickness differently if I keep submitting it to
God's kindly love by thinking of Christ himself gently anointing me
with the oil of his tenderness. If I experience pain only as something
inimical and alien, I can be led astray: into bitterness and hardness of
heart. Oil is soft and dissolves bitterness. It counteracts acidity and
leaves a pleasant taste in the mouth. My illness will taste quite
different if I allow it to be permeated by God's love acting like olive
oil on and in me.
The oil used for anointing the sick is blessed by the bishop in Holy
Week. The sacrament of anointing the sick enables us to share in the
mystery of Jesus's death and resurrection. It helps us to comprehend
Jesus's ultimate act of devotion on the cross. Jesus transformed his
violent death on the cross into the culminating point of his love.
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John's gospel tells us that Jesus on the cross loved us to the point of
death and beyond. The anointing of the sick is also an invitation to
see our suffering as an act of devotion, as sharing in Jesus's Passion. If
I accept my sickness and endure it for the sake of my brothers and
sisters, I transform it into a source of blessing. Then I do what Paul
describes in his Letter to the Colossians: 'Indeed, I am glad, because
it gives me a chance to complete in my own sufferings something of
the untold pains which Christ suffers on behalf of his own body, the
Church' (Col. 1.24). Elderly people often put it like this: Til offer up
my suffering for my children's and my family's sake.'
Nowadays we find it rather difficult to accept this idea of bearing
our pain for other people. But I find that this attitude helps older
people to accept their sickness, because it enables them still to see
some kind of meaning in their suffering. They don't just experience it
helplessly. Even in their sick state they can still do something for
others: for their children and grandchildren. Even though they are
not only suffering physical pain but have to cope with an impaired
and handicapped life, they can still transform this harsh assault on
them into a gesture of love.
I would express this 'offering up of sickness' somewhat differently. I
would rather see it as wanting to be reconciled with my illness and to
accept it in solidarity with the people around me. I don't want to
suffer my illness passively but to change it into an act of devotion. If I
succeed in this, it will be the greatest transformation I can experience
in my life, for it will mean that Jesus's Spirit has transformed my heart.
I hope that God will heal my sickness. But if I sense that the end is
near, and the doctor's diagnosis confirms this, it is pointless to cling
stubbornly to life. For the anointing of the sick is also an exercise in
learning how to die. Jesus's hand, which touches me in the
sacrament, invites me to leave it all behind: my tasks, work,
possessions, the people around me, and finally my own self. Then I
know that even death cannot snatch me from Jesus's hand, but that
he will be with me as I pass through the doors of death. I know that
in death I shall fall into the motherly love of God's arms, and that
they will clasp me and hold me to him. Then I shall be at home for
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CONCLUSION
The sacrament of anointing the sick is not merely a rite which priests
administer to the sick. Christ meets us in the sacrament so that we
can share in his life. He touches us as the Physician with power to
heal our wounds. He stretches his loving hand over us so that,
protected by his love, we can make our way into the mystery of life
and death, and into the mystery of his death and resurrection.
The Church's concern for the sick reaches its high point in this
sacrament. The growing number of old and sick people in our times
strengthens the Church, the community of the faithful, for the task of
caring for ill people during this period of disturbance and distress in
their lives. The quality of a community is revealed in the way it
treats its sick and aged members. Precisely in the sacrament of
anointing of the sick, the Church undergoes its trial as a community
of those who know that they are sent by Christ to proclaim the good
news of the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
This sacrament is an invitation to the sick to withstand their
illness in communion with Christ and to see it as an opportunity to
understand the mystery of humanity in God's presence. The
anointing of the sick clearly shows that every sickness is a spiritual
task, and that ultimately it demands not only medical or psychiatric
care but spiritual fellowship, if it is to be accepted and transformed.
The rite of anointing the sick shows us how to cope with sickness
spiritually. In the end it is a matter of transforming illness into an act
of devotion and love, and thereby making it the most intense of all
possible forms of prayer. All our prayers must flow into the words
with which Jesus himself entrusted his life to God's kind and loving
hand: 'Lord, I commend my spirit into your hands' (Luke 23.46).
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